New Delhi [India], Mar 7 : PayPal, one of the world's leading payments platforms today announced an extension of its merchant partnership with MakeMyTrip, leading Indian online travel booking company, to facilitate hotel and holidays booking in addition to airline tickets.

As a global leader in digital payments, we are committed to put our customers at the centre of everything. Our strong on risk and security has enabled us to become a payment choice for millions of consumers around the world.

The partnership with MakeMyTrip will help foreign tourists continue to enjoy the seamless and secure PayPal experience to book hotels and holiday packages and tide through the recent challenges they are facing post the demonetization of select Indian currencies.

MakeMyTrip has 34,000 hotels across India and 240,000 hotels internationally and will be using the automated invoicing feature of PayPal.

Through this facility, they will be able to automatically send invoices to customers by an email along with a link that can be followed to complete payment through PayPal.

"At PayPal, we consistently work towards ensuring smoother management and movement of money, and we understand that meaningful collaborations are key to enhancing customer delight. As a part of this endeavor, we are delighted to further our partnership with MakeMyTrip and ensure a hassle-free hotel booking experience for our foreign guests in India. PayPal strives to be the ideal companion for travelers across the globe and the businesses in the Travel and Hospitality industry," said Director Large Merchants PayPal India, Megha Thareja Tyagi.

"We are very excited to extend the domain of our existing partnership with PayPal. As a leading player in the online travel segment, we have seen the online hotel market explode thanks to increasing mobile penetration and adoption, especially for last-minute hotel bookings. We have made aggressive efforts to tap into this segment and are hopeful that the partnership with PayPal would help in addressing the element of safe and secure transactions, one of the biggest barriers in the consumer's mind while booking a hotel online," said COO-Hotels and Holidays MakeMyTrip, Mohit Gupta.

According to a study, the Indian tourism and hospitality industry contributes to nearly 6.2 percent to the National GDP and 8.8 percent of total employment. Online hotel bookings in India is expected to reach USD 1.8 billion 2016. Recently released data by Ministry of Tourism shows that the number of foreign tourist arrivals in India grew at an annual growth rate of 4.5 percent last year.

Being the leading travel company in the country, MakeMyTrip has always been recognized for providing the best value-based offerings to the customers and the expansion of partnership with PayPal is in line with the endeavor to provide best-in-class service, thereby creating customer delight in the hotel booking segment.

The partnership is part of PayPal's recent announcements that have been focused on making the entire user experience more convenient, collaborative and secure for its customers and merchants. (ANI)