SANTA FE — On May 20, 2022, the New Mexico Tourism Department (NMTD) released a Request for Proposal (RFP) for an integrated tourism exchange platform, which will enable a better travel planning and booking experience for suppliers and customers.

Tourism exchanges are government-supported digital business-to-business distribution platforms that connect suppliers and distributers, as well as intermediaries such as online travel agencies. It then can provide the engagement data from the platform to provide more sophisticated analytics to those intermediaries, as well as local destination marketing organizations.

A tourism exchange will also allow NMTD and local destination marketing organizations to offer unique travel packages that prospective travelers desire, making tourism-related businesses more competitive in the global market. This is particularly helpful for smaller and independent tourism businesses that do not have robust marketing resources to thrive in today’s digital environment.

“We have an opportunity to set a new standard for how a state can boost the profile for the destinations, businesses and experiences that drive tourism for New Mexico,” Cabinet Secretary Jen Paul Schroer said. “Through this tourism exchange, we will empower more tourism businesses with the data and digital access they need to be more competitive.”

Only Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Great Britain, and a coalition of 20 islands in the South Pacific have fully executed a tourism exchange. Currently, no state has deployed a tourism exchange at a statewide level.

NMTD will be accepting submissions for the RFP until June 17, 2022. More information about this RFP is available at www.newmexico.org/industry/about-us/rfp.