Tourists around the world are rethinking how they spend while travelling, driving demand for new payment solutions and indirectly reshaping the global FinTech ecosystem.
Over the past two years, travellers’ financial habits have changed significantly. Analysts at Alipay+, Ant International’s cross-border mobile payment solution, identified three major trends in the travel industry that are influencing not only merchants but also payment service providers.
These include:
- Shift in consumer habits. Travellers now prefer to pay abroad using familiar home apps, making cross-border mobile payments the new industry standard.
- Changing spending patterns. Tourists are spending less on shopping and more on local experiences, seeking richer and more personalized adventures.
- Rise of super-apps. All-in-one payment apps that integrate payments, bookings, transport, and marketing services are becoming the primary gateway to the travel ecosystem.
According to Alipay+, since the COVID-19 pandemic, tourists cut back on traditional shopping in favor of more varied, experience-driven itineraries. Spending in certain categories surged dramatically, namely:
- restaurants and cafés — up 80%;
- sightseeing and attractions — up 50%;
- transport, including taxis, trains, and car-sharing services — up 120%.
Experts claim that this behavioral shift is directly influencing the evolution of global payment infrastructure. More and more people are paying for travel and purchases abroad using the same apps they use at home. Alipay+ reports that in the first nine months of 2024 alone, the number of users making overseas payments via their apps tripled, as did the number of transactions. In H1 2025, over 6.5 million new users made cross-border payments through Alipay+ for the first time, while total transactions at online travel agencies and offline merchants rose by more than 30%.
Furthermore, the widespread adoption of mobile wallets is transforming the tourism economy by giving even small businesses access to international customers. Payments via national standardised QR codes nearly doubled, helping small cafés and shops in smaller towns attract more tourists. Transactions under $10 increased by 37%, while the use of coupons and promotions through built-in marketing tools jumped by 57%, reflecting travellers’ strong interest in value deals and local services.
Analysts note that the payments market is quickly adapting to these changes. Alipay+, acting as a global gateway for mobile wallets and banking apps, expanded its ecosystem to over 100 jurisdictions, connecting 1.8 billion users and more than 90 million merchants through 40 international partners. New features such as a built-in AI travel planner and automatic tax refund service are turning wallets from simple payment tools into full-scale digital travel platforms.
Recently, French payment giant Worldline and Chinese provider YeePay joined forces to simplify international transactions in China’s aviation and travel industries. Read more about how cryptocurrencies and Web3 solutions are transforming the tourism sector in CP Media’s article.
