Mastercard's MasterPass is to be embedded in a London travel app developed by the Mayor's promotional office London & Partners, enabling tourist to make in-app payments for tickets to major attractions.
The Visit London Official City Guide app will deliver personalised experiences and offers and uses real-time data to help visitors get around the city more efficiently and explore less busy areas of the capital.
Findings from a recent London visitors survey conducted by London & Partners showed that historic landmarks and architecture, attractions, parks and waterways, and museums and galleries all feature in the top five reasons for visiting the capital.
As such, the app provides relevant content across culture, events, food, attractions, shopping and neighbourhoods, with ‘must see’, ‘nearby’ and ‘near me’ functionality enabling easy planning and booking, plus one-touch payments capability to buy tickets to events via MasterPass.
Available on iOS and Android, the full version of the app is live today following a beta test which saw it downloaded over 160,000 times.
“We’re working with more than 70 cities around the world to introduce better transport payment systems, removing tickets to ease congestion,” says Jason Lane, EVP, market development, Europe at Mastercard. “Why should so many people have to visit so many websites to plan their schedule when they can do it with one app that even allows them to book and pay for everything they need? This is what we want to solve with London & Partners.”