Source: Nielsen, Alipay
KUALA LUMPUR: According to a recent report published by Nielsen and Alipay, 2019 New Trends for Mobile Payment in Chinese Outbound Tourism, Southeast Asia region maintained its leadership in mobile payment usage among Chinese tourists in 2019, reflecting the region’s maturity in mobile payment solutions.
The report provides a new look at the digitalisation trend of the overseas retail sector at a time when online and offline businesses are increasingly merging, and Chinese tourists are poised to have even more influence as they travel abroad. The latest data from the China Tourism Academy showed that the outbound tourism market totalled about 81.3 million trips in the first half of 2019, up 14 per cent year-on-year.
In the global ranking of ‘Top 10 Countries Where Chinese Tourists Love to Use Mobile Payments’, Singapore and Thailand ranked at first and sixth. The preference of Chinese tourists for overseas destinations has influenced the overseas growing pace of Chinese mobile payment. The ranking of popular overseas destinations among Chinese tourists highly overlaps with that of countries that support Chinese mobile payment. Other popular destinations on the list include South Korea, Japan, Australia, France, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and the US.
These results are encouraging more overseas merchants to deepen the use of Chinese mobile payment platforms as they go digital. In Singapore, South Korea and the UK, 66 per cent of surveyed merchants hope to carry out more digital store operations through Chinese mobile payment platforms, and to further their promotional and marketing activities by leveraging Chinese mobile payment platforms. 78 per cent of surveyed merchants in the United Kingdom said they are likely to recommend Alipay to their industry peers, especially for utilising digital operations to improve efficiency and turnover.
“Chinese mobile payment engagement level (the proportion of mobile payment transactions by Chinese tourists travelling overseas) and the depth of usage (total spending of mobile payment by Chinese tourists travelling overseas) continued to increase, indicating a more in-depth development of Chinese mobile payment solutions globally,” said Nielsen China president Justin Sargent.
Ant Financial’s International Business Group president Angel Zhao commented: “The trend of more overseas merchants going beyond payment to adopt more digitalized services is a promising one, as it helps brick-and-mortar businesses become better integrated with the digital economy while bringing more personalised experiences for consumers around the world. Alipay, as part of the Alibaba ecosystem, aims to support the digital transformation of businesses and we will continue to innovate and help merchants around the world benefit from the rise in global tourism.”
In Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan and South Korea, the usage rate of mobile payment among Chinese tourists reached 70 per cent, with Singapore in the leadership position at 77 per cent.
In 2019, 3.4 out of every 10 payments made by each Chinese tourist during overseas travel were mobile payments, a slight increase from the previous year at 3.2. The per capita total amount of mobile payment made by outbound Chinese tourists increased by 18 per cent in 2019 compared to 2018.
More overseas merchants intend to deepen the use of Chinese mobile payment platforms as they go digital with its usage by Chinese tourists becoming increasingly common and showed a steady upward trend each year.
In 2019, compared with last year, Chinese tourists born in the 1990s spent nearly 12 per cent more on a single overseas trip while those born in the 1980s spent 15 per cent more. An underlying reason for the increased travel expenditure may be the desire for a more in-depth experience of local cultures.