Japan Adopts New Payments Tech in Response to Chinese Tourism Boom
Skift Take
Americans and Europeans who used to scoff at QR-style bar codes are going to need to learn how to use them to pay for meals, attractions, and tickets whenever they visit Japan. The reason? Swelling Chinese tourism is prompting the country to adopt China’s preferred mobile payment method.
Many visitors face a problem: Japan’s restaurants and operators of activities and attractions typically don’t accept the preferred digital payment methods of foreign tourists.
The problem speaks to a broader reality. "Many small and medium sized businesses in Japan don’t have in-store credit card and mobile payment processing terminals," said Silvio Tavares, CEO of CardLinx, an association focused on online-to-offline commerce. Fewer than one in five consumer and business transactions are by credit card.
But Chinese tourists expect to make cashless payments. So Japan is increasingly adopting tech that appeals to them.
In recent months, AliPay, Amazon Pay, Line, Yahoo Japan, and domestic banks have begun wooing merchants with tech that holds the promise of helping attract high-spending Chinese visitors.
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In Japan, QR codes — or square-shaped black-and-white barcodes are quickly overtaking other options, such as credit cards embedded with computer chips or phones with near-field transmitters, as methods for cashless payments.
China’s tourists to Japan outnumber all other foreign visitors in numbers and spending. Close to 7.35 million Chinese tourists visit
