Country and City Domain names to be protected through .travel Registry and WTO agreement

Tralliance Corporation, New York, the .travel Registry, in cooperation with the World Tourism Organization, has affirmed a priority right to the nations of the world to register their respective country, cities, and place names in the .travel Registry.

Each country and city destination, as well as UNESCO Word Heritage Sites, will now be able to register their valuable place names in the .travel Registry, which will commence registrations in the fall of 2005.

The priority right provides individual nations with the ability to register their domain names with the .travel Registry before other legitimate travel or tourism entities, which may share the same names, have access to those names. The prioritization will overcome the frustration felt by governments that characterized earlier Top Level Domain introductions (such as .com etc), wherein many nations were pre-empted from registering domain names for their countries, cities, heritage and sacred sites.

"The WTO's participation with the .travel Registry will alert its 146 Member States and other countries that they can protect their names on the World Wide Web. We expect that they will move swiftly to take advantage of the first domain name priority right ever offered to governments in the history of the Internet," explained Tralliance Corporation President and Chief Executive Ronald N. Andruff. "Travelers, in turn, will have the assurance and confidence of knowing that .travel web sites will, indeed, be official and exactly what they are seeking,"

"Travel and tourism, while a major player on the Internet, has been operating without a clear identity. .travel domain names will bring enormous visibility to our Member States and clarity to all that their destinations have to offer," stated WTO Deputy Secretary-General Dr. Dawid de Villiers.

A derivative of the nations' priority right will enable the proper registration of .travel names for the world's largest popular centers to ensure their names are also distributed in a logical fashion. This right ensures that Internet users seeking information about Paris, for example, will find Paris, France at www.paris.travel instead of another destination with a similar name such as Paris, Texas or Paris' other economic activities.

Countries will have until March 31st, 2006 to preserve their rights to their specific geographic place names.

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