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London 2012 bosses yet to register dot-travel domain name – 7 Dec 2006

London 2012 Olympic Games - official logo


Dot-travel logo

UK tourism bosses have been slammed for failing to secure dot-travel domain names for the 2012 London Olympics.


Worldwide 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.


So far 65 countries, including the US, 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 Parnell and VisitBritain chiefs but they have failed to apply for any domain names, including addresses based around the 2012 London Olympics.


Added to the fact that no 2012 Olympic-based addresses have been registered, 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.


He claims it will create an “intuitive web” where consumers will trust dot-travel sites and make them their first port of call for information, while dot-travel sites will also achieve high rankings on the search engines.


“It’s criminal,” said Andruff. “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, it said it’s the individual tourism landmarks’ responsibility to register a dot-travel address.


London 2012 declined to comment.


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