To capture the cost-conscious American travelers, Mexico is tapping into the online areana.

With the Concept "The Mexican Experience Begins with a Click" the Mexico Tourism Board is Taking the First Step in Converting Visitmexico.com into an Integral Tourism Portal (ITP)

As Americans scale back on travel to destinations where the U.S. dollar continues to struggle, the Mexico Tourism Board (MTB) today launched a new shopping and booking engine on Visitmexico.com for travelers in the U.S. The new deal with Travelocity aims to bring those travelers to Mexico.

The announcement comes at a time when many travelers have already started shifting their international travel plans to the more affordable Mexico. For example, Travelocity recently reported that the share of its bookings to Mexico this summer increased 31.4%, while destinations in Western Europe declined by 14.6%.

With the concept "Mexico's experience begins with a click," the Mexico Tourism Board seeks to reach potential tourists offering a unique practice; involving tourists and bringing them closer to Mexico by visiting the website (www.visitmexico.com), and more importantly, enabling them to book online with no need to look elsewhere.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Travelocity Partner Network, which currently powers the shopping engines for more than 100 destination marketing organizations around the world, will power the booking engine for the MTB's Visitmexico.com, providing a variety of travel products ranging from flights, hotels, car rentals, vacation packages and last minute packages for visitors around the world interested in traveling to Mexico. This marks the first time that the MTB has entered into a comprehensive agreement with an online travel company.

"The launch of this new shopping and booking engine is a major milestone in promoting all of the wonderful destinations Mexico has to offer to the world," said Oscar Fitch, CEO of the MTB. "We need to get the message out that Mexico is an affordable destination with tremendous value."

"Travelocity is honored to be playing such a key role in promoting tourism throughout Mexico," said Bryan Estep, vice president partner marketing Travelocity. "We are proud to couple the zest and spice of each of Mexico's unique destinations with our hassle-free one-stop shopping engine."

The Internet is becoming the primary means of finding information and purchasing travel services. It is a global trend and has revolutionized the way in which tourism is done. For this reason and to bolster Mexico's competitiveness in tourism markets, the MTB has embraced this technological advantage and is planning on taking its portal to the next level.