By SARAH NASSAUER
The Wall Street Journal

With a clean bill of health and a lifted travel ban, Mex­ico tries to draw tourists back with deals and perks.

Every­thing for the wed­ding was ready — the on-site florists, pho­tog­ra­phers, and a 35-foot acrylic plat­form built over the blue ocean water at the Rose­wood Mayakoba resort near Can­cun. Then, two weeks before Megan and Stephen Stork’s May 9 wed­ding in Mex­ico, the swine flu hit.

After a week of e-mails among ner­vous guests, the Hous­ton cou­ple held a con­fer­ence call with their wed­ding plan­ner, Anna Mar­tel, to con­sider chang­ing coun­tries. But that didn’t make sense, says Ms. Mar­tel, who said she was care­fully fol­low­ing flu news. “More peo­ple in the U.S. have it,” than were infected in the Can­cun area, she pointed out.

About 15 guests decided not to come. But the 80 who did enjoyed free upgrades to ocean­view suites at the nearly empty resort, quiet beaches, a pool party with a DJ allowed to con­tinue into the wee hours and dis­counted room rates.

“Who would have thought the swine flu was the best thing ever that would hap­pen to the wed­ding?” says 31-year-old Ms. Stork. “It was so fabulous.”

If you want to grab an unprece­dented deal for Mex­i­can travel, enjoy quiet beaches and make soli­tary climbs up Mayan ruins, now is the time.

Swine flu, or H1N1 influenza, has dec­i­mated Mex­i­can tourism. When news of the flu hit in late April, hotels and air­lines saw a mas­sive wave of can­cel­la­tions. In the week fol­low­ing the flu news, Mex­i­can hotels reported a 50.7% drop in occu­pancy accord­ing to Smith Travel Research.

Where The Deals Are

At The Tides Zihu­atanejo, an upscale resort along Mexico’s Pacific coast, about 124 guests can­celed on the Mon­day after the flu news broke, says Car­los Blanco, gen­eral man­ager of the prop­erty. The resort lost 350 room nights for the month of May, a 25% drop in occu­pancy. “It was a dis­as­ter,” says Mr. Blanco.

Air­lines imme­di­ately cut ser­vice to Mex­ico in an effort to save money. Ger­ard Arpey, chair­man and chief exec­u­tive of AMR Corp., which owns Amer­i­can Air­lines, said Wednes­day the air­line cut flights to Mex­ico by one-third, and there are still many empty seats on cur­rent flights.

But last Fri­day, the Cen­ter for Dis­ease Con­trol removed the swine flu-related travel warn­ing issued for Mex­ico on April 27. The move opened the flood­gates for travel agen­cies, hotels, and resort to feel com­fort­able pro­mot­ing the des­ti­na­tion again.

Bookit.com Inc., an online travel agency, launched a Mex­ico deals page about an hour after the CDC lifted the warn­ing, says Jesse Hen­son, Bookit.com’s vice pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing. Mex­i­can resorts have been offer­ing deals for months because of gen­eral eco­nomic woes and impact from sev­eral weeks of neg­a­tive news about drug-related vio­lence ear­lier this year, says Mr. Hen­son, “but we haven’t really pro­moted dur­ing a time when we it felt was going to be dan­ger­ous for our guests.”

Now Bookit.com is push­ing Mex­ico pro­mo­tions, says Mr. Hen­son. Cur­rently, the site is offer­ing a $600 air­line ticket credit for book­ings of seven nights or more at The Royal in Can­cun, for travel between June 28 and Dec 21 when booked by June 1.

Travel deals are wide­spread and sig­nif­i­cant. Through Sep­tem­ber, the Tides Zihu­atanejo and the Tides Riv­iera Maya are both offer­ing a sec­ond room free when guests book one room or villa. Through this fall, Rose­wood Hotels and Resorts’ Mayakoba and Las Ven­tanas prop­er­ties are run­ning pro­mo­tions that include dis­counted rates, a $200 resort credit, a room upgrade when avail­able, and full daily break­fast for two.

Dreams Puerto Aven­turas Resort & Spa in Riv­iera Maya is offer­ing a three-night, all-inclusive pack­age for $599.99 per per­son, with­out tax, avail­able for most May and June depar­tures. (July or August dates are $50 extra.) The pack­age includes a $200 resort credit and round trip air­fare on USA3000.

Orbitz.com, owned by Orb­itz World­wide Inc., is offer­ing 30% dis­counts on nightly stays at The Westin Resort & Spa Cancun.

Many of the deals are avail­able through the sum­mer and into the fall and win­ter, tra­di­tion­ally the begin­ning of Mexico’s tourist season.

The Ritz-Carlton in Can­cun launched a “Love & Fam­ily” pack­age on May 19 that includes accom­mo­da­tion in an ocean­front room, a half-price sec­ond room for chil­dren, din­ner on the beach for par­ents, daily break­fast for two, kids meal plan for the entire stay for up to two chil­dren, along with other perks. Rates start at $489 for book­ings until Dec. 20.

In Mex­ico City, the region with the most reported cases of the flu, hotels have been hit hard by the flu news, but oper­a­tors there expect to bounce back more quickly than resort des­ti­na­tions, because the city attracts busi­ness trav­el­ers and is a trans­port hub.

At Casa Vieja Méx­ico, gen­eral man­ager Luis Fer­nando Sosa says occu­pancy has bounced back to about 30% this week com­pared to 5% dur­ing the first week of May. Still, the small, high-end prop­erty is tout­ing deals. Until June 15, trav­el­ers can book three nights for the price of two or receive a free din­ner with a two-night stay.

Plane tick­ets are also on sale. On Travelocity.com, a unit of Sabre Hold­ings Corp., ear­lier this month the aver­age air­fare pur­chased from New York to Can­cun, Mex­ico cost $371 round-trip for sum­mer travel. By May 19 a search for a ticket in mid-June could be had for $266 round trip. The aver­age air­fare pur­chase on the site from Los Ange­les to Can­cun on May 1 cost $432 round-trip for sum­mer. By May 21, a ticket for June travel could be found for $317 round-trip.

Act Fast

There is some evi­dence that book­ings are already pick­ing up, pushed along by the dis­counts and the CDC’s change in travel warn­ing sta­tus for Mex­ico. If trav­el­ers book flights and hotels quickly, the deals could disappear.

Jeff McGov­ern, a home remod­eler in War­wick, R.I., says the dis­count on flights to Mex­ico encour­aged him to plan two trips to Mex­ico in the next year instead of one. “Because the fares were so good, I booked one with Delta in Novem­ber and one in March,” with US Air­ways, says the 52-year-old, who nor­mally makes an annual trip in March. He paid $280, includ­ing taxes, for air­fare for his Novem­ber trip and $301.50 for his March trip – a third of what he says has paid in the past.

Some travel agents and hotels also say book­ings have risen since the CDC dropped its warn­ing. Tim Mullen, senior vice pres­i­dent of Apple Vaca­tions, a major Mex­ico travel ven­dor, said book­ings this week [since May 17] jumped back to lev­els seen in past years dur­ing the same week. “Peo­ple are com­ing because of the unbe­liev­able deals,” says Mr. Mullen.

Beyond price, another draw for tourists: Empty beaches and rel­a­tively uncrowded attrac­tions. After climb­ing about 140 feet to the top of Nohoch Mul pyra­mid, a Mayan ruin near Can­cun, Jessi Cleaver was thrilled to feel so alone. At the top, she and her guide didn’t have any­one to take their pic­ture. “He had to take mine. I had to take his,” says the 36 year-old soft­ware spe­cial­ist from New York.

Her May 10 Jet­Blue Air­ways flight from New York to Can­cun was nearly empty, and she says she got a deal on Jeep rental, at $25 per day. She did post­pone her trip by one week, but only because some of the ruins she wanted to see had closed, not because she was afraid of catch­ing swine flu.

“I wasn’t buy­ing this mass media hys­te­ria,” she says.

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