Ahead of the Chinese New Year, Alipay+ is connecting with a plethora of global merchants in more than 57 markets to offer benefits when using its payment methods for international travel.
The Ant Group-owned online payment platform will partner with the likes of Alipay HK (Hong Kong), TrueMoney (Thailand), Touch ‘n Go eWallet (Malaysia) and OCBC Digital (Singapore) to integrate its wallets and banks apps as part of its global merchants coverage.
Merchants can utilise Alipay+ digital marketing and growth tools to build more effective consumer engagement at home and abroad, with an end goal to drive merchant growth through innovative commerce whilst also providing benefits for consumers.
This comes with the 2024 Chinese New Year holidays beginning on 10 February as China’s outbound travel bookings have surged more than 10 times compared to 2023, with top travel destinations including Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia for Chinese tourists.
Douglas L. Feagin, President of Alipay+, said: “2024 will be an exciting year for Alipay+ to unlock many digital innovations in online and offline cross-border commerce.
“As a global travel phenomenon, Chinese New Year is the perfect moment to kickstart our new range of partnerships, campaigns and product offerings to build a seamless and authentic travel experience and bring more business for merchants large and small.”
The new push in 2024 builds on significant expansion of Alipay+ merchant coverage in key travel destinations over 2023.
Alipay+ became the cross-border digital solution partner to national QR schemes for SGQR (Singapore), DuitNow (Malaysia) and ZeroPay(South Korea). This enabled users of Alipay+ payment partners to pay using their home e-wallets at all shops in the countries, allowing for tourists to travel and pay locally seamlessly.
“Travel, especially international travel, is clearly an anchor for national and regional prosperity in Asia and beyond,” added Feagin.
“Alipay+ will continue to expand partnerships and our repertoire of digitalization tools to help communities thrive through cross-border travel and commerce.”
