Princess Cruises Offers Alipay and WeChat Pay Onboard Ruby Princess

First cruise line to offer both Alipay and WeChat Pay payment options onboard a passenger ship in North America

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Dec 19, 2018, 17:11 ET

SANTA CLARITA, Calif., Dec. 19, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Princess Cruises today announced that Chinese guests onboard Ruby Princess have the option to utilize both Alipay and WeChat Pay payment options while shopping in the boutiques. This makes Princess Cruises the first and the only cruise line to offer both Alipay and WeChat Pay payment options onboard a passenger cruise ship in North America.

Princess Cruises Offers Alipay and WeChat Pay Onboard Ruby Princess - First cruise line to offer both payment options onboard a passenger ship in North America.

Alipay and WeChat Pay are China's top-two popular forms of digital payment. Alipay is China's most popular digital wallet service and lifestyle platform and is expanding to in-store, offline payments both inside and outside of China. Alipay's in-store payment service covers over 40 countries and regions across the world. Currently, over 900 million people use the system for digital transactions globally. WeChat Pay is another widely used digital wallet service and mobile payment app in China. WeChat Pay now has 800 million monthly active users worldwide and total volume a year in 2017 was about 6.5 trillion USD.

Princess Cruises is committed to provide amenities to its Chinese guests making payments during international travel more seamless by offering home-away-from-home comforts on select ships including Chinese language menus, Chinese culinary dishes, Chinese onboard hosts, Chinese-language shore excursions. Now, we are pleased to offer our Chinese guests the ability to pay for boutique purchases onboard utilizing the top-two payment methods used by Chinese consumers.

"We have heard from our guests that incorporating Chinese mobile payment services provides a more convenient way to travel," said Gordon Ho, Chief Marketing Officer of Princess Cruises, the world's largest international premium cruise line. "As we continue to attract more Chinese outbound travelers to fly overseas and cruise with us, this is another example of our ability to tailor our offerings to the preferences of Chinese travelers. We see this as a great opportunity to make onboard purchases even more convenient as we remain focused to exceed the expectations of our Chinese guests."

Guests first used the convenient digital payment platforms of Alipay and WeChat Pay in The Shops of Princess onboard Majestic Princess, the first luxury cruise ship tailor-made for the Chinese market in 2017 during the cruise ship's summer deployment in Shanghai.

About Princess Cruises

One of the best-known names in cruising, Princess Cruises is a global premium cruise line and tour company operating a fleet of 17 modern cruise ships, carrying two million guests each year to 380 destinations around the globe, including the Caribbean, Alaska, Panama Canal, Mexican Riviera, Europe, South America, Australia/New Zealand, the South Pacific, Hawaii, Asia, Canada/New England and World Cruises. A team of professional destination experts has created more than 150 award-winning itineraries, ranging in length from three to 111 days and Princess Cruises has been continuously recognized as "Best Cruise Line for Itineraries."

Princess Cruises continues its multi-year, "Come Back New Promise" – a $450 million-dollar product innovation and cruise ship renovation campaign that will continue to enhance the line's onboard guest experience. These enhancements result in more moments of awe, lifetime memories and meaningful stories for guests to share from their cruise vacation. The product innovations include partnerships with award-winning Chef Curtis Stone; engaging entertainment inspired shows with Broadway-legend Stephen Schwartz; immersive activities for the whole family from Discovery and Animal Planet that include exclusive shore excursions to onboard activities; the ultimate sleep at sea with the award-winning Princess Luxury Bed and much more.

Three new Royal-class ships are currently on order with the next new ship, Sky Princess, under construction scheduled for delivery in October 2019 and Enchanted Princess in 2020. Princess recently announced that two new (LNG) ships which will be the largest ships in the Princess fleet, accommodating approximately 4,300 guests with expected delivery in 2023 and 2025. Princess now has five ships arriving over the next six years between 2019 & 2025. The company is part of Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE:CUK).

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SOURCE Princess Cruises