CEO of UnionPay International Cai Jianbo (3rd Left), Australia's Trade, Tourism and Investment Minister the Hon. Steven Ciobo MP (3rd Right), Tourism Australia Managing Director John O'Sullivan (2nd Right) and the Australian ambassador to China Ms. Jan Elizbath Adams (1st Right) attended the ceremony

UnionPay International and Tourism Australia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Beijing on Aug. 28th, agreeing to deepen collaboration on UnionPay service promotion, visa application payment enhancement and tourism-related information sharing in the next three years. CEO of UnionPay International Cai Jianbo, Australia’s Trade, Tourism and Investment Minister the Hon. Steven Ciobo MP, Tourism Australia Managing Director John O’Sullivan and the Australian ambassador to China Ms. Jan Elizbath Adams attended the ceremony.

UnionPay International continues to deepen its cross-over cooperation with the tourist industry over the past few years to improve the tourist payment level. In 2012, UnionPay and Tourism Australia signed the first MOU, which helped the two sides make substantial progress in promoting the local merchants to accept UnionPay, launching jointly promotional activities and card-using education. Today, the two sides add two new aspects to their collaboration based on the previous cooperation framework: One is to share tourism-related data with each other to deepen the understanding of the traveling and spending habits of Chinese tourists in Australia so as to offer tailored tourism and payment products. The other is to further enrich the value-added services, including the online and offline acceptance of UnionPay cards for visa application payment, and the improvement of visa application procedures for UnionPay cardholder who visit Australia.

Cai Jianbo said that tourism is an integral part of Sino Australian bilateral exchanges. The cooperation between payment service and tourism plays an increasingly important role in promoting the increase spending and development of tourism. In recent years, with the growing trend in free-and-independent travel and in-depth travel, the number of Chinese tourists has increased steadily. We have continued to strengthen cooperation with Tourism Australia to provide convenient and safe payment services for UnionPay cardholders in Australia. “Against the background of the “China-Australia Tourism Year”, we extend the UnionPay card service to all aspects of traveling to enhance cardholders’ experience. Meanwhile, we accelerated the rollout of UnionPay mobile QuickPass in large scale to provide innovative payment for our cardholders. Last but not the least, we accelerate the issuance of local credit cards to provide new payment options for local Australians who travel to China.” he said.

Minister Ciobo said that China is one of Australia’s fastest growing tourist source markets and has been our highest spending market for six consecutive years. It is vital Australia continue with its China Ready plans so that we can meet the evolving demands of this important market. Ensuring Chinese visitors have the best holiday of their life when they’re here means they will come back and tell their friends to come too.

Mr. O’Sullivan said that China is Australia’s largest market for international visitor spend, now worth $9.7 billion annually, and this partnership is part of our focus towards ensuring we continue to be a China-ready destination for the 1.2 million plus Chinese visitors who are travelling to Australia each year. We want to ensure that Australia can continue to meet the needs of this important and growing visitor market.

In Australia, UnionPay is accepted at about 90% of ATMs and 75% of merchants. Among these UnionPay-accepting merchants, over 60% of them support UnionPay mobile QuickPass, which enables customer to complete payment with their mobile phones. Besides, the official website of Qantas Airways, the largest airline in Australia has accepted UnionPay cards for online ticket booking. Meanwhile, UnionPay International has jointly issue the Load & Go China travel card together with the Australia Post to provide a new payment choice for Australian residents who visit China.