Singapore Airlines accepted Alipay payments during the trip.

Alipay and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) recently offered Chinese travellers to opportunity to visit Singapore cash-free.

Six entrants in a social media campaign were chosen to travel to Singapore on a ‘cashless’ and ‘priceless’ trip using Alipay for their purchases, which covered everything from meals and accommodation to transportation, shopping and entertainment.

Singapore’s Resort World Sentosa, Shangri-La Hotel and flag carrier Singapore Airlines accepted Alipay payments during the trip, which doubled as a promotional campaign for the island’s various tourist destinations.

“We are pleased to have partnered with Alipay in this activity given their strong reach and understanding of the Chinese market, our top source market for both visitor arrivals and tourist spending,” said Jacqueline Ng, Director, Marketing Partnerships and Planning, STB.

“We hope to use the insights from this initiative to explore better ways of engaging Chinese visitors and to offer more compelling and seamless experiences through Alipay that are better tailored to their passions.”

CHINESE ‘WOULD SPEND MORE’

Singapore is experiencing a boom in its Chinese visitor numbers, with over 3.2m travelling to the country in 2017 according to Alipay quoting STB figures.

China accounts for the highest number of travellers to the country  and is the largest source of tourism spending, adds Alipay.

According to a joint Nielsen and Alipay whitepaper released earlier this year, 65% of Chinese tourists use mobile payments overseas – six times more than non-Chinese tourists (11%).

Over 90% indicated they would use mobile payment services overseas given the option; 93% would consider using said services if more merchants supported the technology; and crucially, 91% said that if this was the case it would spur them on to shop more.

The research also revealed that Chinese tourist spending also greatly outstripped that of non-Chinese tourists by an average of $762 to $486, respectively.

Duty free shopping was ranked as the most popular outlet for Chinese tourists (62%), followed by department stores (47%) and supermarkets (47%).