This week, the operating Registry for .TRAVEL gTLD announced that it has relaxed its registration eligibility in order to boost its declining number of registrations.
The Registry announced that registrants now do not need a licensed business in the travel industry, but are required to provide, or plan to provide, services, products or content in the travel industry. Applicants are however required to have a “member number” or UIN before applying for a domain through their registrar, but this can now be applied for on the .TRAVEL website.
The Registry also notified that there are a variety of domain names available for potential applicants. According to RegistrarStats.com, there are only 16,800 domain names registered with .TRAVEL after 10 years of availability.
Reports suggest that the extension has not performed well in the recent years. In 2010, the registrations dropped to around 30,000 and since then they have slowly declined to the current figure and have been further threatened by the rise of nTLDs.