The on-again, off-again discussion about liberalizing the Internet’s top-level domain name system is ignoring an important industry – ours.
Earlier this month in Geneva, an international ad hoc committee of governing groups announced broad support for the implementation of seven new top-level Internet domain names, including “.arts” for art-related sites, “.firm” for businesses, “.info” for information resource sites, “.nom” for personal home pages, “.rec” for recreational sites, “.store” for retail services, and “.web” for Web-related sites.
It’s an encouraging development for anyone who has spent hours on the WHOIS database, struggling to find a catchy “.com” name, only to lose the address to InterNICs draconian first-come, first-served policy.
But the controversial plan ran into trouble a week later, leading to the demise of the ad hoc committee and its replacement by an interim policy oversight committee, which included most of the members of the ad hoc committee. At issue was the group’s authority to impose the new domain names.
As the committee ponders the network’s future, and its own, it’s only fair that the interactive travel industry should take this opportunity to speak up while there’s still a chance.
We need our own top-level domain.
Travel is an online institution that will generate an astounding $1.6 billion in annual sales within three years, according to the forecasters at Forrester Research. The latest Georgia Tech survey suggests that nearly half of all users are logging on to find information about travel. Of those, one-fifth are buying an airline ticket or a cruise or booking a hotel.
If that’s not a strong enough argument for a new “.trav” hierarchy, consider this: travel in general, and interactive travel specifically, got the worst domain names.
It was our fault. While the rest of corporate America scrambled to secure appealing addresses for its Web sites during the early 1990s, interactive travel foolishly adopted a “wait-and-see” approach.
American Express, for example, blew it. In 1994 it lost “american.com” to the American Internet Corp. of Bedford, MA. It also forfeited the rights to “amex.com” when the American Stock Exchange snatched up the address, then defaulted to the cumbersome “americanexpress.com” for its ExpressNet site. Now wouldn’t “amex.trav” sound so much more elegant?
Of course American Airlines might not like it if ExpressNet registered “american.trav” too. Then again, the airline is no stranger to online disputes. According to the WHOIS database, Sabre is embroiled in one right now over the use of “sabre.com” – presumably with another company that wants to use the name.
While we’re on the subject of carriers, take Delta Air Lines, which had the “delta.com” address swiped away by the obscure Deltacomm Development Co. of Morrisville, NC. Maybe the airline would prefer “delta.trav” to its considerably clunkier “delta-air.com”?
Extremely awkward domains such as “thetrip.com” could re-christen themselves “trip.trav,” making them far easier to find on the Internet. Sites such as “etauction.com” would become “auction.trav” and “air-travel-card.com” would be shortened to “atc.trav” or even “air.trav”.
Perhaps one of the most embarrassing oversights belongs to Reed Elsevier, whose Reed Travel Group subsidiary is a perpetual laggard when it comes to interactivity. “Reed.com” was registered by a gentleman named David P. Reed in January 1995, when the commercialization of cyberspace was well underway, and is being used as his personal home page. So the parent company had to settle for the unappealing domain “reed-elsevier.com.”
But the company failed to learn its lesson. One of its most important domain names remains on the loose even today. As delegates gather for the annual Travel Weekly conference this weekend, the rights to “travel-weekly.com” are still up for grabs. Someone really should do something about that.
Adding another top-level domain for our business is a timely idea. However, it may not make much difference if our biggest players can’t learn from their past mistakes. Our industry may need its own top-level domain, but it probably doesn’t deserve it.
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