China recorded a truly remarkable tourist turnout during the five days dedicated to the May Day celebration which just ended, well beyond expectations also thanks to the high number of vaccinations carried out in the country and the measures put in place for control. of Covid-19. Data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism records a total of 230 million domestic tourist trips during the holidays, marking a 119.7% increase over last year. Credit card payment giant China UnionPay has certified that tourism-related consumption in these vacation days has reached a whopping 40 billion yuan, something like over $ 6 billion. The digital payments market in China is a $ 60 billion reality. This is because, out of 1.4 billion inhabitants, at least half use the Internet to shop and the annual growth rate exceeds 6%. Tools such as Alipay have a user base of 80% under the age of 45, people who access mainly by telephone and who take advantage of the possibility offered by the service to keep payment to the merchant blocked until the product is delivered . A penetration that also permeates the rural areas of the country: according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce, in the period January-March, extra-urban online retail sales reached 439.79 billion yuan, or about 68 billion dollars, increasing 35.3% compared to the previous year. In general, in 2021 China will be the first country in the world where online sales will exceed those of stores: according to eMarketer, 53% of retail sales in China will come from e-commerce channels, compared to 44.8% in 2020. Thanks also to social ecommerce, a new way to make purchases through social network platforms such as Little Red Book and Douyin. Social commerce grew 44.1% in China in the past year alone and will increase by another 35.5% in 2021 to reach a market value of $ 363 billion. Recently, PayPal Holdings launched its digital wallet, not so much to go in direct contrast with services like those offered by Alipay and WeChat Pay but to focus on cross-border payments: a market of over 377 million individual users and over 20 Thanks to digital payments that have fostered internal mobility, according to data collected by the Shanghai Office of Culture and Tourism, the city recorded 16.89 million tourist visits during the days of the May Day holiday. , with an increase of 138.88% compared to the same period of 2020.
