India’s Digital Payments Boom Reaches Foreign Shores
Photo Credit: Representational image of mobile payments. Pexels / cottonbro studio
Skift Take
The world is no longer expecting Indian travelers to adapt during their travels, and is ready to cater to them instead.
The world has Apple Pay, but India has its own, popular instant payments system - the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Sri Lanka’s Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts, says UPI is increasingly the payment method of choice in Indian travelers’ wallets.
Cinnamon has rolled out UPI payments across its portfolio in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indian guests will now be able to pay directly from the UPI apps on their phones when staying at any of the company’s properties.
India is the biggest source market for Sri Lankan tourism, and Cinnamon says this move aligns its services with Indian traveler behaviour, including longer stays, family-led trips and a “digital-first” expectation.
Hishan Singhawansa, Cinnamon’s CEO, calls the rollout “a practical response to how Indian travelers already live and spend,” rather than a standalone technology experiment.
The push for UPI is going global. During his recent visit to Malaysia, Prime Minister
