SHANGHAI, Dec. 24, 2025 — China UnionPay, a prominent card scheme, launched its “Nihao China” app on December 19, 2025, coinciding with the opening of the China International Travel Mart in Hainan, a southern island province of China.
The app is designed to offer comprehensive digital services for international visitors to China, encompassing payment, transportation, daily living, cultural tourism, and various other aspects. Its goal is to improve the ease of inbound tourism by providing a convenient, smart, and user-friendly end-to-end experience within China.
With a primary focus on payment and transportation, the “Nihao China” app incorporates numerous practical features.
Regarding payments, the app facilitates top-ups using UnionPay cards issued internationally, alongside cards from leading global schemes like Visa and Mastercard. This enables diverse payment options across both online and offline settings, including common scenarios such as transportation, lodging, and shopping, thereby offering inbound tourists smooth and convenient QR code payment capabilities.
For transportation, the app provides access to subway networks in 43 major cities and bus services in more than 1,760 cities at or above county level across the country, allowing for universal access with a single code. Additionally, it offers easy navigation to nearby amenities like ATMs and foreign currency exchange locations, further improving travel convenience.
To address cross-currency payment exchange rate concerns, the app can access real-time global currency exchange rates and supports conversions for over 160 currencies, including USD, RMB, and EUR.
As the developer of the “Nihao China” app, China UnionPay utilizes its platform strengths to offer a service hub for numerous partners, fostering a collaborative effort to collectively advance the high-quality growth of cultural and tourism services.
For payments, the app utilizes China’s integrated acceptance network, which includes UnionPay, WeChat Pay, and Alipay, to ensure broader payment accessibility.
Regarding online payments, the app facilitates transactions on more than 300 applications such as 12306, Ctrip.com, Meituan and , thereby completing the payment cycle for each cultural and tourism service partner.
The departure tax refund service is available in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Haikou, and Sanya. It features OCR recognition, QR code interaction, and a complete English interface to ensure efficient and rapid tax refunds.
As a versatile platform-based app, “Nihao China” includes integrated real-time and page translation tools. These tools support multi-language conversational and text translation features, effectively removing language obstacles.
Furthermore, it offers intelligent querying for all app functions, provides one-click access guidance, and suggests subsequent actions based on international visitors’ personal data and usage patterns.
The app can accurately comprehend and respond to international visitors’ inquiries regarding scenic spot details, transportation directions, food suggestions, and more. It also provides navigation services with precise route planning, assisting tourists in quickly accessing necessary information and improving their travel experience.
Moreover, during the China International Travel Mart, UnionPay’s booth was unveiled at the exhibition, showcasing the app’s product features and offering hands-on demonstrations. China UnionPay’s accomplishments in the cultural and tourism sector, including the SplendorPlus Card, departure tax refunds, and cross-border payment solutions, were also prominently featured.
The introduction of the “Nihao China” app represents a significant innovation by China UnionPay in cross-border digital services. It also serves as a key initiative to actively address the national objective of enhancing inbound tourism convenience and fostering the high-quality advancement of cultural and tourism industries.
Moving forward, China UnionPay plans to further refine product functionalities, broaden its domestic and international cooperation networks, and collaborate with global partners to establish a more intelligent, interconnected, and welcoming cross-border lifestyle service network. This effort aims to consistently contribute financial and technological resources towards advancing cross-border tourism cooperation and cultural and people-to-people exchanges.
Source: China UnionPay
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