Mexico City, Mexico – Mexico is aiming for the skies with its sights set on breaking its tourism record in 2013.

At a press conference to announce Grupo Aeromexico’s new flight route between Mexico City and London on Monday, Tourism Secretary Gloria Guevara said, "Mexico anticipates that we are going to break the record again this year with more than 200 million national and international tourists … with these new flights supporting our strategy."

Beginning December 15th, Aeromexico will operate six flights every week between Mexico City and London in an attempt to attract more tourists from the United Kingdom, Mexico’s third largest foreign tourism market. The plan is to compete with British Airways and Virgin Airlines, which already operate routes between the two cities.

"From January to August, UK visitors made up 6.5 percent of international tourists in Mexico, a 20 percent increase compared to the same period last year," Guevara said.

"This tells us that we are on the right path," the secretary said. "The new flights will let us strengthen the connectivity between our country and London and open an important door to the rest of Europe."

Last year, 191.5 million national and international tourists left their homes to see what Mexican tourism has to offer. While United States and Canada are still the country’s largest markets, Mexico has catered to South America and Europe with new flights.

According to figures released by the Tourism Secretariat (Sectur) earlier this month, from January to August of this year, the number of Russia tourists rose by 77 percent; Brazilians, 61.1 percent; and Venezuelans, 38.6 percent.

Mexico’s tourism industry is the country’s largest employer, providing jobs for 3.3 million people, and accounted for 13 percent of its gross domestic product in 2011, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

"No doubt, receiving more international tourists will benefit the thousands of families whose principal source of income is tourism," said and Communications Secretary Dionisio Pérez Jacomé.

The tourism sector is not the only one hoping for a prosperous year. Eleven million people flew with Aeromexico between January and August of this year, a 4.5 percent increase compared to same period last year.

"The company expects to reach pre-crisis numbers by the end of 2012, transporting about 15.5 million people," said the company’s General Director Andrés Conesa at the press conference.

The airline has increased its presence in the market since Mexicana de Aviación, which operated a flight route between Mexico City and London, filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and was left with hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. And, with the Spanish investor group Medatlantic now out the picture, greater uncertainty surrounds the fate of Mexicana.

Aeroméxico could be looking to grab even a larger slice of the pie.

"What Mexicana owes is much greater that what it has," Pérez Jacomé said. "It has to be reconstructed. This can only be done with someone who has the financial resources. If Mexicana fails to find an investor, its routes will be redistributed to companies that comply with government regulations and can offer passengers the most competitive prices."

This could be music be Aeromexico’s ears. The airline plans to begin operating a new flight between Dallas, Texas, and Mexico City in November and other flights to Europe and Asia next year.

Last June, Aeroméxico announced that it would purchase up to 100 new airplanes, representing $11 billion, from the Chicago-based aircraft manufacturer Boeing, including three of Boeing’s new energy-efficient 787 Dreamliners; one of which will make the trip to London’s Heathrow Airport on December 15th.