Convention and Visitors Bureaus Get Access to Dot-travel Domain Names

Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 5/16/2005

Travel is making the final leap online. The .travel domain name will soon be available for purchase by travel organizations, including the 550-plus members of the Intl. Assn. of Convention & Visitor Bureaus.

The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers last month officially approved .travel and expects to launch the domain extension in late 2005. The domain registration program is being overseen by Tralliance, in conjunction with the Travel Partnership, which will assist in policy development. IACVB, the Travel Industry Assn. of America and the Natl. Business Travel Assn. are a few of the 100-plus international travel groups assisting Travel Partnership with .travel.

Tralliance and Travel Partnership are tentatively planning to make pre-authentication for .travel available over the next several weeks. Organizations must be authenticated by one of the participating travel associations before purchasing a name.

This "is an excellent opportunity for CVBs to own destination-oriented domain names that may not have been available to them in the .com or .net domains," said IACVB President and CEO Michael Gehrisch.

Bill Utter, vice president of marketing for the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau, said his bureau is hopeful that the domain name could "become the brand for the official destination group of every city."