- The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and UnionPay International (UPI) renewed their strategic partnership for another three years to boost tourist spending and streamline digital payments.
- Joint marketing campaigns will focus heavily on premium travelers, corporate events (MICE), and visitors from mainland China—Singapore’s top tourism source market.
- Singapore recorded 16.9 million international visitor arrivals in 2025.
- The agreement links STB’s destination marketing with UnionPay’s payment network across retail, dining, transport, and hospitality sectors.
As international travel demand continues to recover, seamless and secure payment experiences are playing an increasingly important role in enhancing visitor satisfaction and driving tourism consumption.
Singapore Tourism Board
Cashless in Singapore: Shifting the Cross-Border Payment Ecosystem
The Singapore Tourism Board and UnionPay International signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding to enhance digital payment experiences for international arrivals. The renewed agreement builds on a previous joint marketing campaign that generated over 40 million digital impressions across global travel platforms.
The strategy focuses directly on high-spending segments. By aligning with commercial banks, luxury travel networks, and hospitality stakeholders, the partnership will introduce exclusive spending privileges and curated experiences tailored specifically for UnionPay cardholders.
Capturing the Chinese Outbound Market
The timing of the renewal aligns with shifting cross-border travel patterns across Asia. Mainland China retained its position as Singapore’s primary source of tourism volume through 2025, a year that saw total international arrivals climb to 16.9 million.
As digital payment preferences solidify globally, reducing transaction friction remains a primary goal for tourism authorities looking to capture maximum retail, dining, and entertainment spend. The partnership will deploy integrated marketing campaigns across major outbound regional hubs, leveraging UnionPay’s existing merchant networks to capture consumer data and habits before travelers even clear customs.
