We tell you why – or much better see it with your own eyes: Over 50% or the Internet users search request in search engines or by direct search include a geographic term and in cases of a special relationship with hotels a generic term like cheap, design or family. We made a search engine request survey with typing in some dozens of search combination with the pattern “hotel paris”, “hotel marina” or just “hotel” (with different country search settings).

To point out the term “hotel paris” with Google, Yahoo and Bing as a representative search example: There is a very clear relation between the search term “hotel paris” and the domain names listed in the top positions: www.hotels-paris.fr, www.hotel-paris.net and www.hotelparis.biz.

Having said this you can imagine how valuable .hotel domain names will be for hotels. Hotels may choose any domain name which describes their hotel, from www.brand.hotel, www.destination.hotel to www.feature.hotel. By the opportunity for improved search engine rankings the .hotel domain extension will offer a great benefit to hotels – and of course shorter and simpler domain names which stick to the Internet users mind.

Provisions payed by hotels for hotel room bookings via the German OTAs range between around 8 up to 30%.

The hotel domain .hotel may help hotel to become more independend from the OTAs by better search engine rankings and more direct type-in by short, simple and descriptive domain names like www.one-and-only.hotel.

• Search Terms
• Locations
• Time ranges (from 2004 to today)

You can search for instance for the search term “hotel berlin” on a worldwide basis within the last 12 month. The results are a “interest over time” graph with key news influencing the results, a world map which shows the intensity of interest in the search term, and the search terms specified into “top searches” and “rising searches”.

Google Insights is for DOTHOTEL a valuable tool to identify search terms, e.g. “hotel” versus “hotels” and the activity of searching customers in this area ans by this the demand for the .hotel top-level domain.

The graphical presenation for the “top searches” looks like this:

Based on the latest developments in ICANN’s process for the acceptance and approval of new top-level domains such as .hotel we have created a chart which shows the next steps and the overall timeline. The estimated schedule for the introduction of the .hotel domain names is based on indications of ICANN in March 2010. The major milestones are:

• June. 2010 – Publication of the 4th Draft of the Applicant Guidebook
• December 2010 – Publication of the final version of the Applicant Guidebook
• April 2011 – Submission of application for .hotel
• March 2012 – Start of .hotel domain name registrations for the hotel industry

We expect that major domain registrars and their domain resellers (where you get your .com or .info domain name today) will offer .hotel domain names from Q2/2012.

A detailed timeline chart is available here.

According to latest information from ICANN the new TLDs including dothotel may become available later in 2011. That means that hotels and hotel chains will be able to register domain names like www.choice.hotel or www.design.hotel at this time.

These figures show how important it is to position the hotel’s homepage among the top search engine rankings in order to catch-up with as much as possible of the customers search requests.

This is exactly where the new .hotel domain names enter the online travel booking landscape because they will improve search engine rankings and by this reduce provisions paid to Online Travel Agents (OTAs) like Expedia, Hotel.de or Tripadvisor. In fact the .hotel domain names will be another simple and inexpensive as well as efficient and effective tool to increase hotel revenues in a strongly growing online travel business.

To summarize an extensive topic, here are the benefits offered by .hotel domain names in this regard:

Benefits of .hotel domain names for customers:

• Better access to the hotel’s website through improved search engine rankings or type-in (direct search)
• Trustworthy and latest information direct from the hotel owner
• Availability of special and best price packages which are not offered by OTAs

Benefits of .hotel domain names for hotels:

• Strong branding effects of the domain name since frequently used by customers
• Less provisions paid to OTAs
• Sustainable better search engine positions

This is a topic on which we will publish more soon, watch out on our website.

The German hotel association IHA is supporting .hotel.

Our .hotel top-level domain project had been invited at the 47th Annual Congress took place between the 18th and 21st of January 2010 at the Continental Hotel in Belgrade, Serbia. With the start of the new decade, the Congress had highlighted the future of the hospitality industry. Belgrade, Serbia perfectly embodied this year’s theme of looking towards the future for opportunities of growth and development in the hotel industry.

We had the opportunity to present the .hotel TLD to a large audience and discuss numerous questions which where asked by the participants. Topic like the protection of hotel brand trademarks came up and requests when and where .hotel domain names will be available.

HOTEL Top-Level Domain managing directors Johannes Lenz-Hawliczek and Katrin Ohlmer at the IH-RA Board Meeting after the presentation on the benefits of .hotel for the global hotel industry.

In a second post the IH&RA states that our .hotel project goals are fully in alignment with the International Hotel & Restaurant Association’s tasks. We appreciate that the IH&RA is convinced that the creation of the .hotel namespace will be a significant step towards the hotel industry. In direction to ICANN Dr. Aidi requests “We strongly encourage ICANN to go ahead swiftly with the new gTLD process. This will not only enable the merits of this innovative concept to be proven but may also have direct effects on the global hotel industry.”

About the IH&RA

The International Hotel & Restaurant Association (IH&RA) is the only global business organization representing the hospitality industry worldwide. It is a global network of independent and chain operators, national associations, hospitality suppliers and educational School in the hotel and restaurant industry, representing over 750.000 establishments in more than 150 countries. Officially recognized by the United Nations, IH&RA monitors and lobbies all international agencies on behalf of this industry, estimated to comprise 300.000 hotels and 8 million restaurants, employ 70 million people and contribute 950 billion USD annually to the global economy.