Trinity Mirror North West & North Wales has launched a new online entertainment guide and monthly glossy magazine.

Liverpool.com is aimed at the area's rapidly growing tourist market and local people who want to make the most of their leisure time.

The website includes listings, restaurant menus and maps as well as offering site visitors the ability to book tickets, hotels and car hire.

It also includes event previews, reviews and video and audio casts.

In addition, the magazine Liverpool.com is being distributed free each month and will be available at around 200 targeted outlets across the region.

TMNW, which publishes the Liverpool Echo and Liverpool Daily Post, is producing Liverpool.com with the backing of the Liverpool Culture Company as the city celebrates its 800th birthday next year, and European Capital of Culture status in 2008.

It has its own dedicated editorial team and writers from the Post & Echo also contribute.

Liverpool Echo editor Alastair Machray, who has ultimate editorial responsibility for the brand across both web and print, said: "Liverpool.com is what Merseyside has been waiting for.

"I was flabbergasted when we began putting the site and the mag together by the sheer volume of leisure options that are out there. The only thing missing was Liverpool.com itself.

"We are home to a whole new generation of confident, optimistic people, anxious to be out and about enjoying what the region has to offer.

"That mood change and the newness of Liverpool is reflected in the fact that Liverpool.com is the first TMNW launch to focus on online with a print companion, rather than vice versa."