SINGAPORE, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- Mobile payment company Alipay and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) on Thursday jointly announced the conclusion of the first cashless trip made by Chinese visitors to Singapore.
According to a statement from Alipay, the trip was designed to promote Singapore's various destination offerings that accept Alipay's cashless payment platform to demonstrate to Chinese visitors that they can enjoy the same seamless experience in Singapore as they do back at home.
Six Alipay users were invited by Alipay and the STB to the trip through a social media campaign. During the trip, they used Alipay for purchases including meals, accommodations, transportation, gifts and souvenirs, and entertainment experiences.
"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 of the STB's Marketing Partnerships and Planning, in the press release.
"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," she added.
Cherry Huang, general manager of Alipay's Cross-border Business for South and Southeast Asia, said, "We are very pleased to work with the STB to provide a cashless experience for Chinese tourists travelling to Singapore. Through Alipay, we hope to help even more merchants in Singapore connect with Chinese tourists."
Statistics from the STB show visitor arrivals from China to Singapore grew 10 percent year-on-year to around 933,000 person-times in the first quarter of 2018, ranking the first among Singapore's top 15 visitor-generating markets.
Meanwhile, Chinese visitors spent about 1.05 billion Singapore dollars (about 0.77 billion U.S. dollars), excluding expenditure on Sightseeing, Entertainment & Gaming, in Singapore, 1 percent less than that for the same period of last year.
