UK tourism bosses fail to secure ‘dot-travel' domain name
UK tourism bosses have been slammed for failing to secure "dot-travel" domain names for the 2012 London Olympics.
Tourism chiefs have until the end of the year to secure dot-travel addresses for countries, regions, tourism sites and events before any firm can apply to register a domain in 2007. The new domain name would appear as www.London2012.travel , if London 2012 had been registered.
So far 65 countries, including the USA, Canada and China, have each registered hundreds of tourism-related addresses. However, the UK has not registered any domains.
Dot-travel president Ron Andruff said he has held talks with former tourism minister James Purnell and VisitBritain bosses but they have failed to apply for any domain names, including web addresses associated with the 2012 London Olympics.
Other UK icons including the Houses of Parliament and Trafalgar Square are also lacking a dot-travel domain.
Andruff accused UK tourism officials of paying "lip service" to dot-travel because they fail to understand the concept.
"It's criminal," he said. "There will be hundreds of thousands of people searching for London 2012 and UK tourism bodies risk missing out on that traffic and it going elsewhere.
"The UK is paying lip service to dot-travel. It doesn't understand what it will mean to travel."
VisitBritain responded by confirming it had registered dot-travel domain names for VisitBritain and Enjoy England.
However, the tourist board said it is the individual tourism landmarks' responsibility to register a dot-travel address.
London 2012 declined to comment.
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By Paul Nelson
This story first appeared on CatererSearch sister website TravelWeekly.co.uk
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