Blog homeThere was an interesting idea on TravelMole today (registration required)
In summary, TravelMole’s VISION on ProPoor Tourism is giving away 6 dot.travel domain names.
Quoting via TravelMole:
Said VISION Editor, Valere Tjolle: “One way smaller, financially-challenged sustainable tourism companies can access potential clients is through the internet. As leaders in the tourism communications field, we want to assist tourism to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals - this is just one way we will be helping.”
Great. Sounds like a good idea. Give away domain names to companies who can’t afford them - however is there a catch?
.travel domain names cost, on average, on an annual basis about £130 GBP (200 USD) - and the freely donated domain is only, by the sound of it, for the initial registration fees and setup costs (not insignificant). Therefore these companies, next year, are going to have to keep paying these inflated annual registration fees. (I say inflated because conventional .co.uk domain names cost just 2 GBP per year - or dot coms about 10 GBP (20 USD). That is 70 times what these cash strapped organisations would have to pay to use a .co.uk domain - or 10-13 times what they would pay for a dot com)
I sent an email to Valere but have not yet had a reply. He is welcome to clarify below.
I am almost inspired to offer something from our company but I fear that I may be shot down in flames with people thinking I am just looking for PR (which actually is a pity that companies should feel that they can’t help because of the PR cynics)
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Just had confirmation (offline) from Valere. He confirms that the annual domain name registration fees are not included.