Amap, the mapping and local services business under Alibaba Group Holding, has introduced a ride-hailing feature on the platform’s English version, allowing foreign visitors in mainland China to get transport in more than 360 domestic cities.
The new feature, which comes months after Amap’s English-language version was launched in February, is accessible via a button on the homepage. Initially, the app will accept users’ registered mainland, Hong Kong and Macau phone numbers.
Payments can be made via Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay, China’s two dominant digital wallets, which both accept international bank cards. Ant Group is the fintech affiliate of Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post.
The new Amap feature reflects the private sector’s support for China’s visa-free travel scheme, which allows visitors from 43 countries to stay for up to 30 days on the mainland.
The scheme also allows citizens from dozens of other countries to spend 240 hours on the mainland during transit.
During the Labour Day “golden week” holiday from May 1 to 5, some 380,000 foreign visitors entered the mainland visa-free, up 73 per cent from a year earlier, according to data from the National Immigration Administration.
