During the 2024 Spring Festival holiday, China's visa-free "Circle of Friends" will be expanded, the capacity of international flight routes will increase, and the popularity of inbound and outbound tourism will continue to rise, forming a short-term peak season. On the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, Alipay shared data analysis of cross-border travel during the Spring Festival, showing that the Spring Festival has once again become the peak period of global tourism consumption after four years, and it has shown an obvious "two-way" warming trend.
Outbound travel consumption has recovered strongly, and payment scenarios are more frequent and diversified
At present, Alipay covers more than 70 countries and regions around the world and 8 million overseas merchants, accompanying Chinese people all over the world. During the Spring Festival, Alipay and overseas merchants expanded their "Preferential Exit" services to provide Chinese tourists with a number of preferential exchange rates, transportation and consumption discounts, making it easier for tourists to travel around the world.
Alipay's outbound travel data shows that the number of overseas purchases by Alipay users during the Spring Festival has been 107% of the level of the same period in 2019, of which the consumption amount will increase by 140% year-on-year in 2023. With the strong recovery of outbound travel, it also shows that users' travel preferences are more diverse, and mobile payment scenarios are more common and diversified.
Among them, nearby destinations such as Hong Kong, Macao, Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea are sought after, while long-distance destinations such as Europe, America, Australia, North America and the Middle East are also gradually picking up, indicating that the travel radius and choices of Chinese tourists are constantly expanding. Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, France, Australia and Canada are the top 10 most popular destinations for Alipay users in terms of spending amount.
Caption: Singapore's famous Yue Hwa domestic products unfurled banners to welcome Chinese tourists
From the end of 2023, the three countries of Southeast Asia's golden tourism route, "Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand", have successively released favorable policies for China, and the spending amount attracted by these three places during the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon has increased by 80% compared with the May Day Golden Week in 2023 before the full visa exemption. Judging from the data performance of Alipay's outbound travel in Southeast Asia, compared with the Spring Festival in 2023, it has achieved a huge growth of nearly 580%. Among them, Thailand topped the list of spending amounts, while Malaysia also performed well, making it the country with the largest increase in consumption among the three countries.
The diversification of tourism consumption scenarios is also a major feature of outbound travel during the Spring Festival in the Year of the Dragon. In addition to traditional consumption hotspots such as shopping in business districts and duty-free shops, hotels and vacations, it has also expanded to "immersive" tourism experiences such as special tourism, local catering, local transportation and cultural and entertainment consumption. Compared with the 2019 Spring Festival, people's spending on local and specialty food and beverage has continued to rise, with the amount of food and beverage spending increasing by 70%, reflecting the pursuit of high-quality travel experiences by Chinese tourists.
At the same time, in recent years, Alipay has focused on expanding overseas short-distance transportation services, and currently supports a variety of overseas travel modes including taxis, car rentals, public transportation, electric scooters, and high-speed rail, which has led to a significant increase in overseas digital travel orders. In particular, the access to diversified bus services has reduced the cost of transportation by about 60% compared with 2019. The carbon footprint of Chinese travel has become lighter, and "sustainable travel" has also become a highlight of Alipay's outbound travel.
The living circle of the Greater Bay Area has begun to take shape, and cross-border mobile payment has risen sharply
With the deepening of the interconnection of the cultural and tourism industries in the Greater Bay Area, the Hong Kong and Macao SAR governments have joined hands with various sectors to organise a variety of Spring Festival activities, making Hong Kong and Macao a favorite of short-distance tourists during the Spring Festival. At present, Alipay's coverage rate in Hong Kong and Macao merchants exceeds 90%; the transaction volume of tourists in Hong Kong and Macao has begun to rise since Chinese New Year's Eve, and has reached new highs day by day.
Caption: The streets of Guanye in Macao are full of people
After the Hong Kong SAR optimized the customs clearance policy at the port, the number of Alipay users' consumption transactions in Hong Kong increased significantly by 45% this Spring Festival compared to the same period in 2019. Tourists are not only keen to buy and buy, but also make good use of local transportation and immerse themselves in one-stop tourism. Alipay's MTR, buses, Star Ferries and Dingding cars, which have been widely accessed, have become the most popular travel choices for tourists, with each user scanning the QR code and taking the vehicle more than 3 times on average. Macao's tourism industry, especially souvenir shops, drugstores and resort hotels, also benefited from the convenient transportation of Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao and the holiday bonus of the Spring Festival, with a 130% increase in transaction value compared to the 2019 Spring Festival.
A mobile phone to travel in China The number of Chinese merchants doing business with overseas tourists increased by 5.6 times
The Spring Festival is becoming more and more "internationalized", which drives the acceleration of inbound tourism. Currently, more than 20 countries and regions have made the Chinese New Year an official holiday, and about one-fifth of the world's population celebrates the Lunar New Year in different forms. This year, with the popularity of cross-border mobile payment services, more foreign tourists will be able to experience the authentic Chinese New Year more smoothly, and more merchants, especially small and medium-sized merchants, will be able to start a "cross-border" tourist business at zero technical cost. Before the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, through Ant Group's Alipay+ innovative cross-border payment technology solution, users in seven countries and regions, including South Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand, can use 10 e-wallets that are commonly used at home to directly scan the QR code to pay in China.
Since October, Ant Group's inbound travel service data has shown obvious "warmth", and in the New Year of the Dragon, the amount of inbound consumption by overseas tourists using overseas e-wallets has increased by nearly 32 times compared with last year's Spring Festival, and the amount of consumption using Alipay has increased by 5 times, helping the growth of tourism and retail industries in various places. The number of active Chinese merchants doing business with overseas tourists increased by 5.6 times compared to the Spring Festival in 2023. Among them, the entry of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan residents, overseas Chinese returning to China to visit relatives and foreign tourists experience tourism have become the three main inbound consumption. Hong Kong, Malaysia, Macau, South Korea and Thailand were the main source destinations during the Spring Festival, while Guangdong, Shanghai, Fujian and Zhejiang were the regions that received the most inbound mobile payment users.
Caption: Macau wallet MPay users spend money in Zhuhai during the Spring Festival
With the help of mobile payment, overseas tourists can experience the scenery and culture of China's big cities and towns in a deeper way, covering hot pot restaurants, bubble tea shops, places of interest and niche attractions. Especially in the Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong and Macao compatriots have truly realized a "cross-border digital life circle". Hong Kong and Macao tourists began to go north before the Spring Festival to buy New Year's goods, hair and nail art and other beauty consumption has also become a rigid demand this year. Before the Spring Festival, Hema, Sam's, and Costco received waves of northbound passengers. In January this year, the average daily number and value of AlipayHK transactions by Hong Kong citizens in the mainland increased by 10 to 15 times compared with the reopening of the border in February last year. Scanning QR codes in the mainland has also become a skillful travel habit for Hong Kong citizens, accounting for one-third of the total transactions in the mainland in January. This year, in addition to the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, the popular Northeast tour in China will also attract more overseas tourists to Harbin and Shenyang to experience the ice and snow world.
Zeng Gang, deputy director of the National Finance and Development Laboratory, said: "From the perspective of the Spring Festival business trend, cross-border mobile payment services have increasingly become the key to a smooth international travel experience, and also provide more direct channels for merchants and tourism departments of various countries to reach users and cross-border promotion.