China UnionPay launches mobile app "Nihao China" to facilitate inbound tourism

On December 19, 2025, the China International Travel Mart kicked off in south China's island province of Hainan, during which China UnionPay, a leading card scheme, rolled out the "Nihao China" app.

Dedicated to providing one-stop digital services covering payment, transportation, daily life, cultural tourism and other scenarios for foreign visitors to China, the app aims to enhance the convenience of inbound tourism through a convenient, intelligent and user-friendly full-cycle experience in China.

Centered on payment and transportation, the "Nihao China" app integrates a variety of practical functions.

In terms of payment, the app supports top-up with UnionPay cards issued outside the China's Mainland, as well as cards issued by major international card schemes such as Visa and Mastercard, enabling diversified payments in online and offline consumption scenarios, including transportation, accommodation, shopping and other high-frequency consumption scenarios, allowing inbound tourists to enjoy seamless and convenient QR code payment.

For transportation services, the app covers subway systems in 43 key cities and bus services in over 1,760 county-level and above cities nationwide, enabling one code for universal access. It also provides convenient navigation to surrounding facilities such as ATMs and foreign currency exchange points, enhancing travel convenience.

Addressing the exchange rate issue in cross-currency payments, the app can obtain real-time global currency exchange rates and supports the conversion of more than 160 currencies, including US dollars, RMB, and euros.

As the organizer of the "Nihao China" app, China UnionPay fully leverages its platform advantages to provide a service platform for multiple partners, forming a collaborative force to jointly promote the high-quality development of cultural and tourism services.

In terms of payment, the app relies on the integrated acceptance network of UnionPay, WeChat Pay and Alipay in China to achieve wider payment coverage.

For online payments, the app supports transactions on more than 300 applications such as 12306, Ctrip.com, Meituan and  JD.com , completing the payment closed loop for each partner in cultural and tourism services.

The tax refund service for departure has covered key cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Haikou and Sanya, supporting OCR recognition, QR code interaction and full English interface to achieve efficient and fast tax refund.

As a platform-based app providing diversified services, "Nihao China" has built-in real-time translation and page translation tools, supporting multi-language conversational translation and text translation functions to effectively eliminate language barriers.

In addition, it supports intelligent query of all functions of the app, provides one-click entry guidance, and offers recommendations for next-step operations based on foreign visitors' personal information and usage habits.

It can accurately understand and answer foreign visitors' questions about scenic spot introductions, transportation guides, food recommendations, etc., and provide navigation services with precise route planning to help tourists quickly obtain the required information and enhance their travel experience.

Furthermore, during the China International Travel Mart, the UnionPay booth made its debut at the exhibition, detailing the product functions of the app and providing on-site experience. China UnionPay's business achievements related to the cultural and tourism industry, such as the SplendorPlus Card, tax refund for departure and cross-border payment solutions, were also fully displayed.

The launch of the "Nihao China" app is an important innovation of China UnionPay in the field of cross-border digital services, and also a major measure to actively respond to the national call to improve the convenience of inbound tourism and promote the high-quality development of cultural and tourism.

Looking ahead, China UnionPay will continue to optimize product functions, expand domestic and foreign cooperation ecosystems, join hands with global partners to build a more intelligent, interconnected and friendly cross-border life service network, and continuously contribute financial and technological strength to promoting cross-border tourism cooperation and cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

Source: China UnionPay

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