With rising incomes and better living standards travelling abroad for many Chinese citizens is no longer a luxury and, according to statistics from China Tourism Academy, a record of 140 million outbound trips were made in 2018.
An increasing number of these travellers are adopting mobile payment while overseas, says a joint report by American research firm Nielsen and China’s leading online payment platform Alipay.
The 2018 Trends for Mobile Payment in Chinese Outbound Tourism found that more than two-thirds (69%) of Chinese tourists paid with their mobile phones abroad, up 4% from the previous year. On their most recent overseas trips, Chinese tourists settled 32% of transactions via mobile payment, overtaking cash for the first time.
The report also revealed Chinese mobile payment solutions help boost sales of overseas merchants — 58% of the surveyed merchants said that after adopting Alipay they saw growth in both foot traffic and revenue.
Merchants in South-east Asia lead their counterparts in other regions in benefiting from Chinese mobile payment. In 2018, about three-quarters of Chinese tourists used mobile payment on their most recent trips to Singapore, Thailand or Malaysia surpassing that for the United States and Canada (61%), United Kingdom, France and Germany (60%), and Australia and New Zealand (68%).
Currently, 58% of surveyed merchants located in areas frequented by Chinese tourists in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand accept mobile payment, with 70% of that number accepting Chinese mobile payment. By comparison, only 12% of them accepted Chinese mobile payment in 2016, underscoring the rapid adoption of Chinese mobile payment solutions by SEA merchants to leverage Chinese purchasing power.
Findings also showed 90% of the merchants in the three South-east Asian countries reported encountering Chinese customers who inquired whether mobile payment was accepted in their stores. About 93% of the respondents would likely increase their spending if mobile payment was more widely accepted – a higher figure than that in the 2017 report.
(Image credit: DragonImages/Getty Images)
The white paper, based on a survey of 2,800+ outbound Chinese tourists and over 1,200 overseas merchants, represents the latest trends and consumption habits of these travellers in overseas markets. It also provides an alternative lens for observing China’s consumer and tourism market.
Other key findings:
- Outbound Chinese tourists travelled to more destinations in 2018, with respondents visiting an average of 2.8 countries/regions, up from 2.1 in 2017
- The average budget for Chinese tourists travelling abroad has increased to US$6,026 per person in 2018, and is expected to rise in 2019.
- Shopping (25%), accommodation (18%) and dining (16%) remained the top three categories for purchases by Chinese tourists. They are also becoming more quality-oriented, and visiting boutique shops to find products they normally wouldn’t find at home and to take part in local shopping experiences.
- Chinese millennials can no longer claim to be the dominant user group of mobile payment abroad, as the older generations are adopting its usage too. About 68% of Chinese tourists born between 1960 and 1979 used mobile payment while travelling overseas last year, almost equalling their younger peers.
- Chinese tourists in their 20s are leading the trend for more exotic destinations. In 2018, 18% of surveyed Chinese tourists born between 1990-1999 travelled to Central and Western Asia or Africa, while 5% visited Nordic countries. These destinations include Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
Download/read the full report here.
A summary of the findings is in the infographic below.
• Featured image credit: https://www.facebook.com/PlargueDoctor/ Getty Images
