Nielsen and Alipay have jointly released a new report on the latest trends in Chinese outbound tourism and the consumption habits of Chinese travelers for the third consecutive year.
Surveying 4,837 Chinese travelers and 547 overseas merchants, the report finds that the Southeast Asia region maintains its leadership in mobile payment usage among Chinese tourists, with Singapore and Thailand positioned at #1 and #6 in the global ranking, reflecting the region’s maturity in mobile payment solutions.
Other countries on the list of “Top 10 countries where Chinese tourists love to use mobile payments” include South Korea, Japan, Australia, France, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and the US.
In Singapore, an early adopter of Chinese mobile payment solutions, almost all merchants (97 percent) indicated steady improvement compared to the previous year in terms of mobile payment usage and the amount of mobile spending by Chinese tourists.
These results are encouraging more overseas merchants to deepen the use of Chinese mobile payment platforms as they go digital. Nearly seven out of ten (66 percent) surveyed merchants in Singapore, South Korea and the U.K. hope to carry out more digital store operations through Chinese mobile payment platforms and hope to further their promotional and marketing activities leveraging Chinese mobile payment platforms.
It’s not surprising then that just under two thirds of merchants surveyed in Singapore, South Korea and the U.K. (63 percent) said that they are likely to recommend Chinese mobile payment systems to their industry peers.
The report provides a new look at the digitalization 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 report further showed that 97% of merchants surveyed in Singapore indicated a steady improvement compared to last year in terms of mobile payment usage and the amount of spending by Chinese customers. Interestingly, in 2019, almost 3 out of 10 payments made by Chinese tourist were made through mobile payments and the per capita total amount made by outbound Chinese tourist increased by 18% compared to the previous year.
