Two of Toronto’s biggest attractions have started to accept Chinese mobile payment options WeChat Pay and Alipay. The CN Tower and Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada both started accepting mobile payments via the two platforms on March 8th.
Combined, WeChat Pay and Alipay have 1.3 billion active users. Both payment apps came to Canada last year. This announcement follows the news that the governments of Canada and China have said that 2018 is the year of Canada-China Tourism.
The year of Canada-China Tourism will officially begin with a kick-off with an opening ceremony event on March 21st in Toronto.
In 2018, 319,000 tourists from China visited Toronto. The city had a total of 2.1 million overseas visitors last year, with visitors from China contributing the most to that number, followed closely by visitors from the U.K.
So far only a small number of businesses accept Chinese mobile payment options, with stores located at Yorkdale, Scarborough Town Centre, Toronto Eaton Centre and Square One, leading the growing list.
MobileSyrup has reached out for comment and will update the story with a response.
Source: Tourism Toronto
