Foreigners spend 700% more on Alipay in China over Labour Day holiday as inbound tourism slowly recovers
- Outbound spending also increased on Ant Group’s mobile payment app, as Chinese tourists took more trips to places like Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea
- Beijing has introduced measures aimed at boosting inbound tourism, including visa-free travel for a number of European and Southeast Asian countries
The app benefited from an increased number of international tourists brought in by China’s new visa-free entry policies, the company said.
The number of visitors – from 15 countries across Europe and Southeast Asia included in China’s visa exemption scheme – who used Alipay during the holiday was up fourfold this year, according to Ant.
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Tourism trouble: post-pandemic hurdles of China travel
Since the middle of last year, Beijing has introduced a series of measures aimed at boosting inbound tourism, including allowing travellers from countries including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Singapore and Malaysia to enter the country without a visa for 15 days for business, tourism, family visits and transit.
The government also expanded a visa-free transit policy that allows travellers from 54 countries to stay in China when passing through the country for up to 144 hours, as long as they have booked an onward ticket to another destination.