Finland set to become first "all Alipay" country for Chinese travellers
Alipay is a Chinese mobile payment application from the world's largest eCommerce company Alibaba. The payment method is making it's way to Finland and the nordic country will become the first "all Alipay" travel destination for Chinese.
In practise this means that travelers can use their mobile devices to pay for services and purchases without cash or payment cars. The Finnish partner for the Chinese company is ePassi. Information comes from Alizila, a news site part of Alibaba.
This is not the first foray into Finland for the payment system, as the Finnish airline Finnair has told in 2017 that it will accept Alipay on it's flights. The company is investing in digital services and customer experience in general. Fluent payments is a natural part of that.
As a demonstration of how wel the application works in Finland, Alipay sponsored eight Tourists to come to Finland and use services make purchases as they would normally. A 28-year-old Chinese woman from the group says that the used another payment method than Alipay only once in her six days in Finnish Lapland.
Finland has experienced growth in visitors from Asia. Chinese tourists are currently the fifth largest group of travelers in the country. The local tourism industry is investing in attracting Chinese travelers to Finland through co-operation with companies like Alibaba.
Finnair, the national carrier has also added flights to local destinations and now flies to eight locations in China. The main international airport in Finland, Helsinki-Vantaa has experienced strong growth in the last years. Cruise ship traffic is also breaking records in the capital, showing that travelers are interested in the city.