At a store named "Changcheng Daka Dian" (长城大咖店) in the Badaling Great Wall Scenic Area in Beijing, Lee from Ireland opened WeChat, scanned the QR code of the store to buy three cups of cold drinks, and enjoyed them with his brother and friends. Lee, who was admitted as a student of computer science of Beijing University of Chemical Technology this March, said that there is no need to carry any cash in Beijing because electronic payment is more convenient and can be completed in a faster way.

A foreign tourist is using the electronic payment method in a store in the Badaling Great Wall Scenic Area in Beijing.

[Photo via Beijing Badaling Culture and Tourism Group]

The Badaling Great Wall Scenic Area is one of the must-go destinations for foreign tourists in Beijing. In the scenic area, three multifunctional ticket vending machines supporting multiple languages have been installed respectively at Badaling Hotel, and the ticketing entrances at Guancheng Square and the cableway. Tourists can purchase tickets by following the guidelines displayed in Chinese and English on these machines which support multiple payment methods. The "Throughout the Great Wall" (长城内外) WeChat mini program also provides bilingual ticket purchase services in Chinese and English and supports online ticket purchases with passports and the Foreign Permanent Resident ID Cards. In addition, the Badaling Great Wall Scenic Area now fully supports various payment methods, such as those with cash, mobile phones, and foreign bank cards via POS terminals.

Since the onset of 2024, to improve the payment experiences of foreign tourists, Beijing has continued to optimize payment services, improve payment convenience, and provide more high-quality, efficient, and convenient payment services.

The Implementation Plan of Beijing Municipality on Further Optimizing Payment Services to Facilitate Payments released in March this year proposes to determine the list of key merchants in tourist attractions and other key venues, and continue to increase the percentage of the merchants with the terminals accepting overseas bank cards (POS terminals) among all the merchants on the list. The transformation of software and hardware of the facilities accepting bank cards will also be expedited, while the use of contactless payment will be promoted in the key tourism spots, such as subway stations. In addition, the plan also calls for the installment of more ATMs in key venues (like the hotels rated four stars and beyond and their surrounding areas, airports, high-speed railway stations, and subway stations) in Beijing to improve the coverage of ATMs that support cash withdrawals with overseas bank cards.

(Source: Chinanews.com)