Dot Travel Registry on Verge of Collapse

[mandy]

The .travel registry could be forced to close within a month if it doesn't find an investor. There are approximately 25,000 .travel domain names.

...now an entire domain registry is on the verge of death. The good news is it’s only the .travel registry, which no one really cares about anyway.

Noted .travel critic Edward Hasbrouck, who has complained about the way the .travel domain was awarded and structured, writes about registry Tralliance’s parent company, TheGlobe.com, Inc., and its cash crunch.

TheGlobe.com has less than a half million dollars left and will run out of money within a month...

full article: http://domainnamewire.com/2007/05/21/wil...stry-fail/

There isn't enough interest in .travel to save TheGlobe, said travel writer Edward Hasbrouck, who has battled unsuccessfully for years with ICANN on behalf of an independent review of its decision to approve the domain and delegate it to [Tralliance], later bought by TheGlobe. Travelers aren't drawn to the name for several reasons, he said. They want information independent of travel services suppliers, not a service guaranteed to be restricted to such companies. So they use Google or other search engines to trawl for travel services, he said.

And since very few travelers use .travel, it offers little value to suppliers of travel services, Hasbrouck said. Large travel outfits will register a .travel name even if they don't use it, but smaller ones "won't waste the $100." Moreover, he said, potential registrants are wary of TheGlobe.com and TheGlobe because they’re "interested in their own profits, not those of .travel registrants." Word of a possible bankruptcy could frighten off even more would-be registrants, said Hasbrouck...

full article: http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001264.html

[mandy]

Update: 1 year later...IT LIVES! (but barely)

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/not_a...t_dead_yet