This week’s .travel newsletter highlights the executive team’s trip to London for the ETOA workshop and conference, World Travel Marketing, and TTPC Board Meeting as well as the featured New Faces in .travel articles spotlighting ChinaTours.travel…..

ChinaTours.travel, owned and operated by the World Panda Travel Group, is a travel wholesaler and tour operator exclusively serving in the Greater China market. ChinaTours.travel markets over 26 years of knowledge operating and managing top notch travel products and receptive services. It provides complete stream-line packaged airline, hotel, cruise, visa, travel insurance to China travel enthusiasts while keeping a competitive edge in pricing, value of products and the quality of service.

Launching Chinatours.travel in March 2008, the World Panda Travel group adopted to .travel with an intention of cutting through the clutter of conventional domain names and making the industry that they are in more easily identifiable.

ChinaTours.travel places emphasis on the .travel extension for the purpose of marketing and outreach to their customers and affiliates. The wide range of .travel names available that clearly represent the business gave ChinaTours the opportunity to use their domain name as brand identification.

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This week’s .travel newsletter highlights the .travel team’s participation at the Travel Leisure Conference in Miami as well as the New Faces in .travel article featuring NewZealandTours.travel….

.TRAVEL FEATURED AT THE 25TH ANNUAL TRAVEL LEISURE CONFERENCE

.travel invited as featured participants at the Travel Leisure Conference November 15-17, 2008.  The 25th Annual Travel Leisure Conference is projected to see record turnouts with over 800 travel agents and hundreds the travel industry’s top executives.Held at the Miami Hyatt Regency, the largest and longest running Travel Trade event presents various educational seminars, workshops, cruise ship inspections, and networking opportunities…

New Faces in .travel Article….

TIME to get on board with .travel, www.NewZealandTours.travel

TIME Unlimited New Zealand Tours and Travel was created as a result of the passion of its directors, Néill and Ceillhe Sperath. Understanding the awe inspiring beauty of New Zealand and its Maori culture, the business was founded in 2005 with the goal of being a one of a kind travel company aiming to guide the global traveler through a true New Zealand experience. TIME, an acronym for “To Integrate Maori Experiences,” and its founders understood the need to market and communicate the business’ wide array of exceptional trips and adventures to the world. In seeking a clear marketing message and solution, TIME Unlimited decided to migrate from timeunlimited.co.nz to NewZealandTours.travel

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Tralliance’s Newsletter this week featured a .travel press release, Tralliance Corporation and .travel Announced as Exclusive Sponsor of ETOA’s Annual Workshop in London, and two press articles from both Travolution in the U.K. and Travel Trade in the U.S.  This week the featured, “New Faces in .travel,” is Job.travel, a New Tool for the Hospitality and Travel Industry, at Just a Fraction of the Price of .com Competitors.

Are you ready to fill a position at your hotel, restaurant, or tourist office? Or are you looking for a job in travel and hospitality? Job.travel is a new tool created by travel industry professionals to match employers and job seekers in “the Biz.”

Knowing how little time business owners and managers have to read e-mail, find qualified employees, and run their businesses, the job.travel team wanted to find a solution and fill this niche. With the ability to quickly search candidates and job opportunities from handheld, mobile devices or desktop computers, job.travel is easy to use and simple for even the non-tech savvy individual.

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This week’s .travel newsletter highlights .travel press with an article from Travel Trade, “URL .travel Sees Uptick in Use,” future travels and participation at ETOA, WTM, and Travel Leisure Conference, and another New Face in .travel article featuring www.ElSalvador.travel

Here is an excerpt from “El Salvador Accelerates with .travel, www.ElSalvador.travel“…..

With beautiful beaches, many adventure and eco-tourism options, El Salvador is a gem to discover in Central America. Although relatively undiscovered and new to the global travel scene, El Salvador is quickly becoming a choice destination in Central America. As a way to jump start its place in the global tourism market, El Salvador introduced a new ministry of tourism project in 2005. As part of this focused project, El Salvador adopted www.ElSalvador.travel as is primary marketing message.

Knowing that a .travel name would automatically link the country as a tourism destination, El Salvador purchased its name in 2006, but has recently launched a new website, branding, and marketing efforts with ElSalvador.travel. Since the launch and other targeted efforts, the growth of tourism to El Salvador has been tremendous in 2008.

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This week’s .travel newsletter begins the celebrations for World Tourism Day, which is Saturday, September 27th.  On that day, another .travel website will be launched, ClimateSolutions.travel, which is supported by the UNWTO.  The site is designed to be a gateway of information to assist the tourism industry to respond to change.

Also included is a summary of the .travel team’s participation at the Travel Marketing Summit in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, September 18th which details the digital trends that affect the travel industry.  Presentations were given by many industry peers from Travelocity, Google, ICE Portal, and others.

As the New Faces in .travel article this week, Topeka, Kansas is featured with www.VisitTopeka.travel.

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The 28th issue of the .travel newsletter highlights the most recent trip of the .travel team. The executive team traveled to Orlando for THETRADESHOW, which is supported by over 16 travel and trade organizations and attended by over 2,000 travel agents. Additionally, the “New Faces in .travel” article features another .travel supporter and success story, VacationRentals4u.travel. Here is a portion of the article:

VacationRentals4U.travel, bringing their business to .travel

Launched in late 2007, VacationRentals4U has a goal to bring the renters together with the rental owners to facilitate a fantastic beach, mountain, and ski or lake vacation. But why did they choose to launch with .travel? Mike Lawell, the sites founder, along with his wife Karen explained, “We launched our site, because Karen’s parents own a house in Seacrest Beach, FL, and were having troubles renting it. I used my experience in the Dot Com industry to build a site that has helped keep their rental rented”.

Receiving over 800 new visitors per week, and with a Google ranking that ranges from 1 to 4, VacationRentals4U will continue to grow into one of the most popular .travel rental sites. Mike and Karen’s ultimate goal is to make VacationRentals4U one of the best rental sites on the entire Internet, “We hope to have every vacation destination listed on the site with thousands of restaurant reviews, vacation rental reviews/testimonials, events, newsletters, and much more”, says Mr. Lawell.

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Who ever said, “What happens in

Vegas, Stays in Vegas?”

Earlier this month, the .travel team had the opportunity to join industry leaders for Travel Weekly’s Leadership Forum. The prestigious event was held at the MGM Grand in no other than Las Vegas.

In a city world famous for nightlife, neon lights, and endless entertainment, Travel Weekly organized a star-studded array of industry experts with cutting edge information on travel trends, niche marketing, and how to survive and thrive in these economic times.

The event was moderated and led by Arnie Weissmann, Editor-in-Chief of Travel Weekly, and Bob Sullivan, VP and Publisher of Travel Weekly. The list of esteemed speakers included: Peter C. Yesawich, Chairman & CEO of the Ypartnership, Art Jimenez, Senior Director of Leisure Sales at LVCVA, Gene Quinn, Chairman of PhocusWright, Tom Roth, President of Community Marketing, Inc., Raphael Bemporad and Mitch Baranowski, Co-founders of BBMG, Bruce Bommarito, Executive VP & COO of TIA, and many others.

Also, our featured New Faces in .travel article was www.Exposure.travel….

The British Columbia experience gets Exposure to the world

Exposure is a new adventure travel company that is designed to cater to the adventurous wealthy elite. The company was founded in September 2007 by two passionate travelers, Nick Gudewill and Cory Matheson. Launching their website – www.exposure.travel – in January 2008, Exposure’s founders realized that there was a great need for a tour operator that left lasting impressions on its travelers while making only a limited environmental impact. Their vision was to bring everything that British Columbia has to offer to the rest of the world. “We wanted to convey that we are a travel and touring company without having to specifically say that in our company name. Having a .travel domain solved this problem for us as it clearly says we are travel, but allows us to build our brand name simply as Exposure. We like the word ‘Exposure’ because our tours are exactly that,” said Mr. Gudewill.

When it comes to marketing its site, www.exposure.travel is ahead of the curve. In addition to prominently displaying its .travel name on all of their newspaper editorials, outdoor signage, and all company apparel, it will also be featured in a TV series called “Word Travels,” which broadcasts on OLN in Canada and the National Geographic Adventure channel worldwide. Currently in production, the episode is scheduled to run in early 2009.

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The .travel community is growing, www.Alabama.travel…..

Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel, Rolling with .travel

One of the many new faces in .travel is www.Alabama.travel. Alabama known as “Sweet Home Alabama” is one of the most beautiful areas in the Southern United States. With over 4.6 million people calling it home, Alabama is among the nation’s leaders in aerospace, education, and healthcare.

The Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel decided in 2007 to begin the process of switching from other top level domains to .travel because the chance to get in early with a more respected top level domain was too good to pass up. According to Luckie & Company, “We honestly had some reservations at first about how consumers might react to a new domain. But early testing on keyword ads and other studies showed that people seemed to respond extremely well to a .travel address. We do still have a couple legacy .com and .org domains which we’re gradually transitioning over to .travel. But the long-term plan is to eventually have everything fall under the .travel umbrella”.

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Travel Trade’s Largest and Longest Running Show has Added a New Feature, the “.travel Pavilion”

The Leisure Travel Conference

Miami Hyatt Regency, November 15-18, 2008

Travel Trade Magazine, with over 79 years of continuous publication, will be hosting the 25th Annual Leisure Travel Conference November 15th through the 18th in Miami at the Hyatt Regency. As this is a historical year for the Leisure Travel Conference, Travel Trade wanted to add a new feature, the “.travel Pavilion.” This pavilion will be held in the convention center, available for all .travel members exclusively. It will be the highlight of the event, which draws 180 exhibitors ranging from international and domestic tourism bureaus, tour and cruise operators, resorts and hotels, travel associations and other travel industry entities. With over 1,000 total travel agents attending from the U.S. and Canada, this is a must attend event.

In order to accommodate participation of all attendees in the seminars and networking opportunities, this year the exhibitor trade show will take place on one day only, Monday November 17^th, will various other trade specific seminars and sessions over the remaining three days. This year Travel Trade is delighted to invite the President and CEO of .travel, Edward A. Cespedes, to address the attendees in a panel discussion regarding technology and travel industry resources on the Internet. For more information on the agenda, please contact Scott Yuhanick

Africa-Adventure.travel

A Journey of Discovery, Diversity, and Determination…

Created by a non-for-profit organization dedicated to tourism education and the youth of Africa, the Africa Adventure Cape to Cape Expedition will take place March 2009. This unique journey features 5 vehicles crossing 2 continents and a total of 28 countries. The trek begins at Cape Agulhas, on the southernmost tip of Africa, and ends in Nordkap, Norway taking about 8 months to complete with a total of 40,000 kilometers; plus, the participants are all women.

To promote this awe-inspiring expedition, the African Adventure Cape to Cape Foundation launched www.Africa-Adventure.travel as its official informational and marketing source late last year.

When asked why the Africa Adventure Cape to Cape Foundation adopted .travel, Enya Fehler, Chairperson stated, “We immediately responded to this new domain, as it clearly identifies what the website is all about - travel and tourism - no doubt it is a must have for every serious tourism player – total no brainer.”

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Continuing Global Growth in Number

of .travel Websites

Do You Own Your .travel Site?

Published by SKAL News in its July-September 2008 Newsletter

For those of you that are aware of .travel and currently own your .travel website, this article will act as an update of .travel news, progress, and press, but for the remainder that do not know of .travel, this will serve as your introduction to .travel and its role in the future of travel and tourism on the Internet.
You may ask what is .travel? Did you mean travel.com or travel.co.uk? As the travel and tourism industry’s exclusive domain name, .travel is unlike .com, .net, .co.uk, or .es, it clearly states your industry and brand with a level of validity like no other domain name. With the industry support of associations such as SKAL, .travel was created to move the Internet to its next chapter of industry specific domain names.
As the awareness of .travel to the industry and consumer increase, we are witnessing growth in .travel domain name sales. As a result of enhanced visibility through participation in trade shows, significant e-marketing, press coverage, and the work of Tralliance Partners, the momentum of the .travel movement has quickened its pace. In all of the countries that we traveled to including Germany, France, Mexico, Costa Rica, and the U.S., the .travel domain name is proving its value. Currently, there are over 250,000 .travel sites that are up and running.

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