This partnership will allow Chinese tourists to use their Alipay app to settle payment at 10,000 Zapper-affiliated merchant locations across the country. The users will also be able to search for restaurants, bars, theatres, bookshops, adventure parks and more through Alipays in-app Discovery platform, and pay for their orders in RMB via Alipay by scanning a Zapper QR code.
According to statistics from the South African Department of Tourism, over 110,000 Chinese tourists visited South Africa in fiscal year 2016, with a year-on-year growth rate of 38%. Tourism in South Africa has grown continuously for 7 years, accounting for 9% of the countrys GDP. The South African government has recognized the tourism sectors potential to generate economic growth and employment. Through the Department of Tourisms strategic plan - National Tourism Sector Strategy (NTSS), the tourism sector is committed to creating 225,000 jobs by the year 2020.
This development arrives on the heels of the online payment service for hop-on-hop-off bus ticketing in Cape Town and Johannesburg that Alipay launched in June 2017.
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