According to data released by Tencent’s ubiquitous app WeChat and Alibaba’s payment platform Alipay, China’s mass holiday migration over the lunar new year shook up spending patterns domestically while setting new trends abroad.
Holiday travelers made a total 1.2 billion transactions using WeChat Pay from Feb. 4 to 9. As travelers took their payment habits home with them, what the platform termed “migratory consumption” (our translation) made up over 40% of all WeChat Pay transactions in small fourth, fifth, and six-tier cities.
Alibaba’s Alipay announced that users born in the 1960s or 70s were the driving force behind growth in China’s outbound tourism and spending. The platform, which is now accessible in more than 40 markets globally, is “a huge drawcard for overseas merchants as a platform to help grow their business,” Janice Chen of Alipay’s Cross-border Business unit, said in a press release.
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