“The implementation of Alipay is another step by Tallink towards providing the best travel experience for the ever-growing number of Asian tourists on our ships,” Paavo Nõgene, Chief Executive Officer of Tallink Grupp said. “Chinese tourists often make their travel decisions depending on whether they can use the Alipay e-wallet in the country of destination, so it is obvious that we should be offering this payment option.”

On 1 July, Tallink made the Alipay electronic payment solution available for buying goods and services at all the company’s points of sale on its ships MEGASTAR and STAR. The payment solution will be rolled out to the group’s other passenger ships by the end of the summer. 

Asian tourists are the fourth largest passenger group on Tallink’s ships: since the beginning of the year, Tallink’s vessels have transported over 250,000 Asian passengers. The Tallinn-Helsinki route has shown the most remarkable growth in the number of Asian passengers, having transported almost 45,000 more Asian tourists than last year in the first six months of 2018 already.

“The Asian market is becoming increasingly important for Tallink Grupp and customers from that part of the world have appreciated our efforts to make them feel at home here. The steady increase in the number of Asian passengers on our ships over the years and various Chinese tourism awards we have received, are clear evidence of that,” Nõgene added.

In May this year, Tallink received the most prestigious tourism award in China, the Global GOLD Prize in the CTW Chinese Tourist Welcome Awards in the best Product Innovation category at Asia’s largest tourism fair in Shanghai. In 2016, Tallink received the Bronze level award at the CTW Chinese Tourist Welcome Awards in the overall performance category.

Alipay is the world’s largest e-wallet service provider with 870 million users worldwide, which belongs to the Alibaba Group, a multinational commerce conglomerate worth over 500 billion US dollars. In addition to the Alipay payment platform, Alibaba Group includes such online stores as, for example, Alibaba and AliExpress.

Alibaba Group was founded in 1999 in China by Jack Ma, formerly an English language lector, who aimed to create a platform that would give equal operation opportunities to numerous small businesses.

The majority of Alipay clients (over 600 million) are currently in China, where approximately half of all domestic transactions are performed through Alipay. In addition to the markets of Asia, Alipay has expanded to Europe, the US and Oceania within the last couple of years.