From 2025 Foundations to 2026 Readiness: Building the Infrastructure for Global Tourist Retail
As 2025 draws to a close, we’ve been taking a moment to reflect — not just on growth metrics, but on what it actually takes to build a scalable bridge between global tourists and offline retail.
Last month, our Co-Founder Toro visited Ctrip’s Global Shopping HQ in Shanghai, meeting with key partners and teams behind one of the world’s largest travel ecosystems. These conversations weren’t symbolic — they were practical, detailed, and focused on one thing: how to better prepare merchants for the next wave of Chinese outbound travel.
EchoBay Co-founder Toro visiting Ctrip’s Global Shopping HQ in Shanghai (Dec, 2025)
What We Built in 2025
EchoBay was founded in September 2025 with a clear mission:
to connect high-value Chinese travellers with offline retail in Australia — efficiently, measurably, and at scale.
In just a few months, we’ve achieved:
8 brands onboarded
43 physical stores live across Australia (and growing)
140,000+ voucher downloads, driving real in-store traffic
Active engagement with global luxury brands and Australia’s largest shopping centres
A proprietary merchant portal, launched in November and continuously iterated to improve both merchant and consumer experience
Profitability and positive cash flow achieved in 2025
These numbers matter — but what matters more is what they represent: repeatable infrastructure, not one-off campaigns.
Case Studies: What “Real Impact” Looks Like
Viktoria & Woods
Since launching on 15 November across Melbourne and Sydney:
60,000+ vouchers downloaded
Strong in-store redemption and brand exposure among Chinese travellers. Operationally, this showed us what’s possible when brand, timing, and distribution align.
Icebreaker
One customer:
Won ¥10,000 (~AUD 2,000) via an Alipay campaign
Used an EchoBay Global Shopping voucher in-store
Achieved 15% total savings (5% cashback + 10% tax refund)
Paid via their preferred method: WeChat Pay, Alipay, or UnionPay
For us, this reinforces a core belief:
better experience + better tech = better conversion.
Why 2026 Is a Different Game
Chinese New Year 2026 runs from Tuesday, 17 February to Tuesday, 3 March — a 9-day public holiday, and one of the longest in recent years.
Between January and February 2026, an estimated 150,000 high-spending Chinese tourists are expected to arrive in Australia.
The question for retailers isn’t whether tourists are coming.
It’s: Are you operationally ready to capture them?
In 2026, EchoBay will launch:
A large-scale Chinese New Year integrated campaign
Online + offline activation across travel, payment, and shopping touchpoints
⚠️ Limited merchant spots available
Looking Ahead
We’re building EchoBay for the long term — with Retail × Tech × Fintech DNA at our core.
As we grow into 2026, we’ll be sharing:
Weekly insights on global tourist shopping behaviour
Practical learnings from live merchant campaigns
Market signals retailers should not ignore
If you’re a retailer preparing for 2026,
now is the time to start the conversation.
