STOCKHOLM, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- ABBA The Museum, an interactive exhibition about the pop band ABBA in Stockholm, has started recently to offer Alipay, one of China's most popular mobile payment methods, to Chinese visitors to the museum in its latest bid to adapt to meet the increasing Chinese market.
With the introduction of Alipay, ABBA The Museum is now able to allow Chinese tourists to buy tickets and shop at the museum directly with their mobile phones.
"We are one of the first major tourist attractions in Stockholm that starts with Alipay, and it feels really good," Caroline Fagerlind, Museum Director, ABBA The Museum told Xinhua in a recent interview.
"We actually had our first Chinese visitor who used Alipay last weekend, and all went very, very well," Fagerlind said, adding that "this is a very large and important step for us."
For the past few years, the musem has seen an obvious increase of Chinese visitors, as more and more Chinese visitors "know what ABBA is and want to visit Stockholm because of the ABBA museum", Fagerlind explained.
So, as a cashless museum, "we need to adapt and offer them this mobile cashless solution for better experience here ... and offering Alipay is a step in this direction," she added.
As a pioneer among major Swedish tourist attractions, ABBA The Museum has already started Chinese-friendly services since last year to help improve Chinese visitors' experience.
The other popular Chinese social media platforms, such as Wechat and Weibo, are also one of the means.
"We've been working on how we could best adapt to the Chinese market, and be online on social media as well, such as Wechat and Weibo," Fagerlind explained, adding that Chinese visitors can scan a QR code to check the museum's Weibo and Wechat pages. Audio guides in Chinese are also availble at the museum.
Fagerlind is passionate and working on further details to tailor the museum more attractive to the ever increasing Chinese visitors. "Now that Chinese visitors can use Alipay for the museum tickets, and at the museum shop, the ambition is to adapt all the POP HOUSE connected to Alipay system, including the POP HOUSE hotel, and the restaurant (the two share the same building with the museum)."
"Chinese market is very important to us, and we'd like to bring Chinese visitors closer to ABBA music and Swedish culture," said the director.
ABBA was a Swedish pop group from the 1970's who had sold over 400 million albums all over the world and remained one of the most successful band of all time.
