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Dot-travel domain unleashed
Travel firms ready to avoid it...

By Jo Best

Published: Tuesday 04 October 2005

The first websites using the dot-travel domain name have officially gone live.

The domain, evidently, is destined for businesses involved in the travel industry and will be administrated by Icann-appointed US company Tralliance Corporation.

And, unlike some other top-level domains, the registrar will only be giving out domain names to specific owners – firms it authenticates as working in the travel and tourism industry, including airlines, tour operators, taxis and B&Bs.

Approved travel operators have been able to register for domain names for some months but have only been able to use their dot-travel suffixed sites from this week.

With popular dot-com domain names fast getting used up, Icann has been forced to create new top level domains to cope with the demand.

However, not all travel companies are convinced that the ever expanding number of top level domains will bolster travel firms' web presence.

A spokesman for easyGroup, the company behind easyCruise and easyHotel, told silicon.com: "Having spent considerable time and effort establishing our dot-com and co-dot-uk domain names, it would seem to be a dilution to establish new ones, especially since some of these seem not to have taken off – dot-biz or dot-tv for example."

Other recent new entrants to the top level domain roster include dot-mobi, a top level domain for content accessed over a mobile device and much-debated dot-xxx, for 'adult content'.

The UK is continuing to invest in domain names, at the rate of 80,000 dot-co-dot-uks per month.