Further evidence that China’s outbound travel demand is soaring again has been confirmed by new figures from Alipay.

The digital payment and service platform has reported that the average spending of outbound Chinese travellers during the first five days of China’s National Day holiday 2023 – from 29 September to 6 October – surpassed the level in 2019.

Travel habits die hard

Familiar spending patterns are back, too, with shopping ringing up the highest expenditure via Alipay during the five-day period.

Familiar destinations are also in demand as Chinese travellers step back into hot spots which were off-limits during the Covid pandemic.

Asian destinations, including Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, and European countries, such as France and Italy, continued to dominate the list of favourites.

Shifting preferences

Interestingly, there was a significant increase in Chinese tourist spending via Alipay in less-explored destinations like Estonia and Qatar compared to the same period in 2019, indicating a shift in travel preferences.

And what were Chinese travellers shopping for? Skincare products and duty-free goods topped the list. Food and beverages, as well as accommodation, ranked as the second and third largest spending categories, respectively.

Alipay in collaboration with its partners worldwide, now provides a full suite of travel services to outbound Chinese tourists, ranging from hotel and air-ticket booking, in-store payment, taxi-hailing, public transport, food delivery to tax refund.

In addition to paying for goods and services with the Alipay app, the number of transportation-related transactions by Chinese travellers rose 16 times compared with the same period in 2019.

Alipay says Chinese consumers prefer mobile payments for their transparent and favourable exchange rates (60%), discounts and other value-added services offered (60%), expense tracking facilitation (56%), and safety and convenience over cash (55%).