VISA: One-fifth of the consumption during the 2018 World Cup uses contactless payment technology

On July 2, FIFA official payment service partner Visa released a report on the consumption of foreign tourists during the opening day of the FIFA World CupTM.

The results show that about one-fifth (17%) of the 11 Russian host cities in the World Cup use contactless payment technologies, including smartphones, bracelets and rings.

At the stadium, 54 percent of the spending, including Russian and foreign fans, was on contactless payments.

From the host city, Moscow has the highest tourism consumption, reaching 1.7 billion rubles (about 26.9 million US dollars), St. Petersburg is 506 million rubles (about 8 million US dollars), Sochi is 104 million rubles (about 1.6 million US dollars) ), Kazan is close to 71 million rubles (about 1.1 million US dollars), and Yekaterinburg has reached 48 million rubles (about 760,000 US dollars).

From the perspective of the consumer group, Visa cardholders spend an average of 3,575 rubles (about 57 US dollars) per transaction. American tourists can spend the most, followed by Chinese and Mexican tourists.

Of all venues, including domestic and foreign fans, 54 per cent used contactless payments.

Among them, Luzhniki Stadium has the highest total payment transaction, and the fans spent 139 million rubles (about 14.66 million yuan), of which 71 million rubles (about 7.46 million yuan) came from foreign fans. 68 million rubles (about RMB 7.33 million) came from Russian national fans.

In addition, Russian fans trade twice as much food and drink as non-russian fans, but non-russian fans trade 1.5 times as much in each of these categories on average as Russian fans.

According to Ekaterina Petelina, regional manager of Visa Russia, “Many international visitors to this year’s World Cup have been in Russia in the future, and we are very happy to provide them with a better World Cup experience through fast and convenient Visa digital payment.

Non-contact payment CARDS and wearable devices are becoming more common. Especially in the stadium, fans like to use contactless payment technology to reduce the queue time and then quickly return to the stadium to watch the game.

Source: VISA and other websites