Should online travel agencies be allowed to own the new .hotel array of domains?
by Markus Luthe, Special Node for Tnooz
NB: This is a viewpoint by Markus Luthe, CEO of the German Hotel Association.
In October 2012, Tnooz was among the first to draw attention to the potential damage that might occur, if an OTA such as Booking.com becomes the host of the new .hotel(s) domain extension.
As earlier this week was the deadline for any formal objections to applicants for ICANN’s new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) at the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), let me provide you with an update of the proceedings – and of course comments from the point of view of a national hotel association.
There are applications for four strings for new gTLDs related closely to the hotel industry:
- .hotel
- .hotels
- .hoteles (Spanish for hotels)
- .hoteis (Portuguese for hotels).
Seven applicants are bidding for .hotel and one applicant each for .hotels (Booking.com), .hoteles (Despegar) and .hoteis (Despegar).
The applicants for the three latter ones are all online travel agencies, namely Booking.com and Montevideo-based Despegar, which is also among the seven applicants for .hotel.
Among total of ten applications for .hotel, .hotels, .hoteles and .hoteis, there is only one who has the support of the global hotel community: Luxembourg-based HOTEL Top-Level-Domain.
This application is being supported among many others for instance by the International & Restaurant Association (IH&RA), American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA), China Hotel Association (CHA) and HOTREC – Hotels, Restaurants & Cafés in Europe ...
Should online travel agencies be allowed to own the new .hotel array of domains?
