As a result, airlines, hotels and other travel enterprises will now be able to connect to the more than 800 million Chinese account holders on the Alipay platform via the UATP Network.
Chinas increasingly affluent middle- and upper-class consumers made 83 million outbound trips in 2012. China has been the worlds fastest-growing tourism source market for the past decade and it is now also the worlds top tourism spender. Chinese travelers spent a record USD 102 billion in 2012 to surpass the US and Germany, both with spending close to USD 84 billion.
Alipay is an escrow-based electronic payment system used for transactions on the Taobao online shopping platform - commonly referred to as the Chinese version of eBay - which is also owned by the Alibaba Group. Alipay partners with more than 180 financial institutions and supports transactions in 15 foreign currencies. It had more than 800 million registered accounts as of December 2012.
UATP provides an alternative to other card schemes to purchase corporate travel. Almost 260 airlines and thousands of travel agencies accept UATP as a means of payment for tickets, service and administration fees and net flight prices. The cards are used in more than 105 countries around the world.
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