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.
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.
Realising gains from policies aimed at boosting international travel takes “patience and effort”, Dai Bin, president of the state-run China Tourism Academy, wrote in an article in January.
The academy is expecting China’s inbound tourism market in 2024 to recover to half of that in 2019, it said in a February article posted to WeChat.
Chinese travellers’ overseas spending has also grown this year as outbound tourism picked up. Total overseas spending through Alipay rose 10 per cent year on year during the Labour Day holiday, Ant said.
Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, South Korea, the US, and Southeast Asian countries were the top destinations for Chinese tourists, according to the company.
Southeast Asia saw a 52 per cent increase in spending by Alipay users during the holiday, with Malaysia recording a 171 per cent year on year increase in tourist spending through the app. Alipay spending in Japan also surged 164 per cent, the company added, as a weaker yen helped tourists stretch their yuan a little further.