Donuts Inc. announced this week that it has acquired the .TRAVEL domain name extension from registry operator Tralliance Registry Management Company. This is Donuts’ first acquisition of a legacy pre-2012 gTLD (generic Top-Level Domain), and the first “community” gTLD to join its stable of strings, which now stands at 239.
.TRAVEL went live in 2005 as a part of ICANN’s (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) 2003 round of “sponsored” TLD applications. The .TRAVEL domain contained some notable websites such as: visitloscabos.travel, adventures.travel, hongkongdisneyland.travel, goldman.travel, AARP.travel, around 18,000 domains registered at the last count, with EnCirca, Name.com, 101domain, Key-Systems and CSC Corporate as its top five registrars.
The .TRAVEL domain becomes Donuts’ 239th TLD, and the centerpiece of an already-robust portfolio of travel domains that includes: .CITY, .CRUISES, .FLIGHTS, .GUIDE, .HOLIDAY, .IRISH, .REISEN, .TOURS, .TOWN, .VACATIONS, .VIAJES, .VOYAGE, .CAB, .LIMO, and .TAXI.
“We are delighted to add .TRAVEL as the ‘anchor tenant’ of our travel-related portfolio,” said Bruce Jaffe, Donuts president and chief executive officer. “The travel market is global, it’s enormous, and it’s ideal for our top-level domains. We are seeing businesses of all sizes all around the world building their digital identity around our domains, and .TRAVEL is the perfect complement.
“Today, nearly 40% of the industry is doing business digitally: travelers and the businesses serving them are discovering, planning, advertising and transacting online. According to eMarketer, the global digital travel market will exceed $200 billion by 2020.
“We believe that adding .TRAVEL to our portfolio will enable us to grow our entire category of domains, by offering compelling choices to travel-related businesses and organizations, and to the many millions of travelers and travel buffs located throughout the world. They’re transacting, they’re blogging, they’re on social platforms, they’re podcasting – they’re everywhere online. We look forward to working with our partners to introduce these high-quality, relevant names to an enormous, global audience.”
The price of the acquisition was not disclosed.
