Ant Group, the global cross-border digital payments and marketing services operator of Alipay+, announced Tuesday that mobile wallets AlipayHK (Hong Kong SAR), Kakao Pay (South Korea), Touch ‘n Go eWallet (Malaysia) and Alipay (Chinese mainland) are now accepted in the Philippines.
The acceptance of the mobile wallets, via Alipay+, comes as travelers come to the Philippines in large numbers.
According to the Department of Tourism (DOT), more than three million tourists have visited the Philippines from year to mid-July, reflecting continued robust recovery.
The DOT said inbound tourism receipts in the first six months were over 500 percent higher than last year. South Koreans top the list of international visitors to the Philippines, while Malaysia ranks in the top 10.
Alipay+ is accepted by merchants in Manila and Cebu, the top two most visited cities in the Philippines pre-pandemic in 2019.
In the first half this year, the Mactan-Cebu International Airport saw a 219 percent increase in passengers compared to the same period last year.
To cater to new expectations of digital-first travelers, the airport has integrated Alipay+ across 90 percent of its merchants, ensuring that tourists enjoy a digitally-enhanced cashless experience from the moment they arrive in Cebu.
Athanasios Titonis, Aboitiz InfraCapital chief executive officer, assigned to MCIA, said: “At MCIA, we have always placed utmost importance on providing convenience and ease of travel through seamless processes and world-class services and amenities. The integration of Alipay+ gives our passengers that exceptional convenience and more payment options when they travel through MCIA.”
Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) is the second largest airport in the Philippines with over 11 million passengers annually, making it the second busiest airport in the country.
With its strategic location and world-class facilities, MCIA aims to establish itself as the main tourism gateway with exceptional travel experience, connecting the world to the Philippines. MCIA is the first and only airport in the Philippines to receive the Airport Customer Experience (ACX) accreditation from the Airports Council International.
On this development, Dr. Cherry Huang, general manager of Alipay+ offline merchant services at Ant Group, said: “Philippines and its many islands, such as Cebu, have long been a favorite destination for Asian travellers and we look forward to working with our local partners to enhance their travel experience. We believe that digital adoption and solutions will shape travelers’ expectations, particularly in the way they engage travel-related businesses, from airports and hospitality to F&B and retail stores. Our focus now is to work with more partners to onboard more merchants with Alipay+ across the Philippines, particularly local small businesses, and promote digital travel and travel recovery.”
Introduced by Ant Group in 2020, Alipay+ aims to enable local businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses, to process a wide range of mobile payment methods and reach more than 1.4 billion regional and global consumers, through one-time integration and simple technical adaption.
In addition to the Philippines, Alipay+ is also widely accepted in the Chinese mainland, Macao SAR, Singapore, Thailand, Japan and South Korea among others.
