Ge Huayong, Chairman of China UnionPay: Convenient Payment Services Help to Drive the Transformation and Development of the Tourism Industry

SHANGHAI, China, Sept. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- As a fast-growing bankcard network, UnionPay will keep strengthening cross-sector cooperation with partners of both domestic and overseas tourism industry, thus to further improve its payment services for tourists. Upon realizing its goal of "being available wherever Chinese tourists go", UnionPay will strive to offer services to global consumers so that they can use UnionPay cards wherever they go.

This new movement of UnionPay was revealed by Ge Huayong, Chairman of China UnionPay, on the 21st UNWTO General Assembly in Columbia. Currently, UnionPay cards can be used in more than 150 countries and regions, covering 26 million merchants and 1.9 million ATMs. The number of UnionPay cards issued overseas has exceeded 46 million, which means that more and more global consumers can enjoy the convenient and privileged payment services offered by UnionPay when travelling.

As the Chairman pointed out, innovative payment like mobile payment can create more space for the development of tourism industry. At present, more and more people are both tourists and UnionPay cardholders. Therefore, many overseas merchants take UnionPay acceptance as an important means and a basic service to attract tourists.

Regarding UnionPay's future participation in the development of the tourism industry, Chairman Ge Huayong pointed out three measures. First, with the rapidly increasing overseas card issuance, UnionPay is dedicated to delivering high-quality services to global consumers and strives to realize its goal of "being available wherever global consumers go". Second, UnionPay will accelerate the application of its innovative products in the tourism industry. Through online reservation, UnionPay QuickPass, mobile payment and other emerging payment tools, UnionPay will satisfy diversified payment demands arising from the changing travel patterns. Third, cross-sector cooperation with domestic and overseas tourism industries will be further deepened. Apart from the improvement of payment services, UnionPay will also cooperate with authoritative research institutions to jointly release reports of tourist spending by analyzing the big data of UnionPay cardholders, thereby serve as the barometer of tourism trends.

The number of China's outbound tourists in 2014 has reached 107 million with year-on-year growth of 19.5%. Regarding the aggregate number, China has been the world's largest source of tourists for three consecutive years. It is expected that both the number of China's outbound tourists and that of China's inbound tourists will exceed 100 million respectively in 2015.

For more information: http://www.unionpayintl.com/