Over 90% foreign travelers use enhanced mobile payment services in China travel: report

A recent study conducted by a research team of the Institute of Silk Road Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) revealed that foreign travelers in China are experiencing improved mobile payment services.

According to the research report released on Wednesday, 90.95 percent of foreign travelers who had visited China before expressed an improved experience with mobile payment during their most recent trip.

This further confirms the effectiveness of a series of policies designed to facilitate mobile payments for foreign visitors. The measures have successfully improved the experience of foreign travelers using mobile payment systems in China, Wu Hao, principal investigator of the research team and associate professor at the Country and Area Studies Academy at BSFU, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The research team conducted a survey from October 31 to December 1 in Beijing, Shanghai, and Xi'an, the capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, which encompassed 2,077 valid responses from foreign travelers across 111 countries.

The study found that 74.36 percent of respondents knew about China's mobile payment system before their trip, and 77.6 percent of them used mobile payments while traveling in China.

A total of 58.79 percent of the travelers have used Alipay. The proportion of travelers who want to try Alipay's tap-and-pay service is as high as 85.37 percent, according to the research.

In the first half of 2024, spending among inbound travelers on Alipay surged eightfold year-on-year, and the number of Chinese companies using Alipay for business involving international tourists saw a yearly increase of 300 percent, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

China is making continuous efforts to ensure that payments are more accessible for foreign travelers.

In a latest move, Chinese financial services provider UnionPay International, in collaboration with Tencent's payment service, Weixin Pay has introduced enhanced payment services for foreign visitors to the Chinese mainland, aiming to offer more diverse and convenient payment options, Xinhua reported.

Travelers using any of eight overseas e-wallets, including Bangkok Bank Mobile Banking and NAVER Pay, can now make payments on the mainland by scanning China's WeChat QR codes.

For the next step, Weixin Pay will continue to expand its cooperation with overseas e-wallets, including those in South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia, Tencent told the Global Times in a statement on Wednesday.

This upgrade is a significant step in China's broader efforts to ease the entry and stay of foreign visitors. On Tuesday, China announced a relaxation of its visa-free transit policy, extending the permitted stay duration for eligible foreign travelers from the initial 72 hours and subsequent 144 hours to 240 hours, or 10 days.

In November, the number of Weixin Pay transactions made using foreign card payments increased 6.4 times from the figure recorded in July 2023.