KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 5 ― Alipay transactions by Chinese tourists in Malaysia grew five times between July 1-August 31 this year ― China’s summer holidays ― compared with the same period of 2017.

Alipay is a mobile and online payment platform offered by the China-based Ant Financial Services Group.

In a statement today, Alipay said this made Malaysia the ninth largest market worldwide for Chinese tourists’ spending overseas using its payment platform during the summer holidays, and ahead of the United States.

"Apart from Cambodia, the growth also made Malaysia, the only other Asian country to make the top-10 transaction growth list,” it added.

Cross-border Business for South and Southeast Asia General Manager Cherry Huang said Malaysia is a hotspot for Chinese tourists.

"When we established our network with Malaysian merchants in May last year, we looked forward to seeing both Chinese tourists and local businesses mutually benefiting from our presence.

"Today, we are pleased to observe that Chinese travellers can continue enjoying the smart lifestyle they have back home, and Malaysian merchants are able to expand their service offerings and see profit with Alipay,” she said.

Alipay said it processed almost three times as many in-store overseas transactions compared with the previous corresponding period in 2017.

"There was a 43 per cent increase in the average per-capita spend per user this year, rising from 2,073 yuan (RM1,257) to 2,955 yuan (RM1,792),” it added.

According to data from Tourism Malaysia, China was the third largest source of tourist arrivals for Malaysia in 2017 at 2.28 million visitors, and more are expected to arrive moving forward. ― Bernama