Golden Week is GO GO GO for Chinese Travel

BEIJING, Sept. 20, 2018: Worldpay, Inc. (NYSE: WP; LSE: WPY), a global leader in the payments technology industry, is predicting online travel sales will soar in China leading up to the popular Golden Week Festival in October – with the Chinese population set to spend a whopping 250 million yuan on travel¹.

Last year, the payments processor recorded a 28 percent year-over-year increase on travel bookings in the lead-up to the week-long festival, unleashing the spending power of the Chinese population on the industry. Worldpay predicts this trend will continue, as consumer confidence reaches a 10-year high in 2018.²

The surge in growth is expected to come from airline bookings, which were up 45 percent last year, according to Worldpay data. With airline bookings well ahead of travel bookings, these figures suggest Chinese consumers are taking advantage of the holiday festival, Oct 1-7, to travel farther afield.

Analysis of consumer spending habits in 2017 found that booking travel well in advance would be beneficial to tourists, as spending increased in the last-minute lead-up during September. The data also found the peak time for booking is two weeks before the national day, Oct 1, with payments up 13 percent on the previous week as shoppers look to score last-minute deals.

Commenting on the data, Phillip Shi, country manager for China at Worldpay, said: “The ‘gold rush’ has truly kicked off as shoppers look to bag a bargain for their October vacation. Last year saw Golden Week growing in popularity as travel spend surged, and we expect this trend to continue in 2018.

“Our data finds that airlines are experiencing exponential growth as appetite for international travel grows. The way we book travel is certainly changing and Chinese consumers are particularly hot on mobile spending.

“Two-thirds of shoppers in China want to be able to book travel with cashless solutions such as WeChat Pay and Alipay³. Digital native consumers now expect a seamless booking experience with the ability to pay using their preferred method, otherwise cart abandonment becomes a problem.”

Regarding online travel booking, 66 percent of Chinese travelers stated they would choose to store their payment details, in addition to personal details, to process repeat bookings faster⁴. To help online travel agents, airlines and retailers appeal to more Chinese travelers, Worldpay accepts all the most popular Chinese payment methods, including WeChat Pay, Alipay and domestic card brand UnionPay.

About the data
Figures quoted are according to Worldpay’s Global Enterprise eCommerce transaction data for airlines and online travel agents headquartered in China from Sept. 1-30, 2016 and Sept. 1-30, 2017.

About Worldpay

Worldpay, Inc. (NYSE: WP; LSE: WPY) is a leading payments technology company with unique capability to power global integrated omni-commerce. With industry-leading scale and an unmatched integrated technology platform, Worldpay offers clients a comprehensive suite of products and services globally, delivered through a single provider.

Worldpay processes over 40 billion transactions annually through more than 300 payment types across 146 countries and 126 currencies. The company’s growth strategy includes expanding into high-growth markets, verticals and customer segments, including global eCommerce, Integrated Payments and B2B.

Worldpay, Inc. was formed in 2018 through the combination of the No. 1 merchant acquirers in the U.S. and the U.K. Worldpay, Inc. trades on the New York Stock Exchange as “WP” and the London Stock Exchange as “WPY.” Visit us at https://www.worldpay.com/global/.

For more information, please contact:
Emily Lahey : emily.lahey@worldpay.com – +44 203 664-5663
Katie McCracken : worldpayecommteam@golin.com - +44 207 067 0128

¹Worldpay transaction data, 2017
²Nielsen, 2018
³Mobile Payment Journey study compiled in partnership with Opinium, which interviewed 16,000 consumers who have purchased goods on their mobile phone in Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, the U.S. and UK. Reports available at: http://www.mobilepaymentjourney.worldpay.com
⁴Mobile Payment Journey study as above