TRAVEL providers, including airlines and OTAs, will be able to offer UnionPay as an online payment method directly via the Amadeus Payment Platform after a new agreement signed between the Chinese cross-border payment service provider and the technology solutions provider.
With this agreement, Chinese travellers will now find it easier to travel overseas as they pay with their preferred payment card, allowing travel providers to gain a strong foothold into Chinese outbound and domestic tourism.
Celia Pereiro, head of Amadeus travel payments, said the new agreement offers travel providers a quick and easy link to UnionPay’s large base of cardholders in China.
UnionPay is the biggest card scheme worldwide with over 4.3 billion cards in circulation, supporting every major Chinese consumer bank. Last year, the UnionPay network accounted for 80 per cent of total payments made by outbound Chinese tourists.
This latest development rides on the back of Amadeus’s recent agreement with Alipay, one of China’s leading online payment service providers that accounts for nearly 50 per cent of all online payments, according to Pereiro.
She said: “With (Alipay and UnionPay), we help our customers to target new segments that are already paying with this method of payment. We can now integrate the process of payment with this new method in the selling process, which facilitates the whole process and makes it faster and more efficient.
“Our customers will have a shortcut to the Asian giant (China) by offering millions of potential Chinese travellers the option to pay with their preferred payment methods. They are not limited to Chinese outbound travel – they will also be able to access Chinese consumers who live outside China,” Pereiro added.
China was ranked by UN World Tourism Organization as the world’s top-spending tourism market in 2012.
