Issue with .travel domain
By Darren Cronian on Friday, June 30th, 2006

One of my readers has a blog on a .travel domain and is having problems with people viewing the blog – I included. So what is the .travel domain – it is a Sponsored Top Level Domain, therefore restricted to eligible entities only, such as ABTA and TTA members.

It is restricted to people, organisations, and private, governmental and non-governmental agencies in the travel and tourism industry. Each .travel domain applicant will have the option to appear without cost in an exclusive .travel directory only for .travel domain holders.

My internet service provider is Orange (previously Wanadoo) and a friend has tried the domain out on BT Yahoo, without any success. Now a friend who works for a government organisation can view the blog without any problems.

So – is the .travel domain just limited to be viewed by travel agencies, or approved travel companies, and government domains, and ISP’s like Orange cannot view the .travel domain. Visit www.selectworld.travel and report in the comments if you could view the travel blog – we might then be able to help the reader pinpoint the problems.


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14 responses to “Issue with .travel domain”

Kieran O'Shea | 30 June, 2006 at 12:59 pm

I’m seeing the .travel blog from here fine.

As far as I know, no domain is excluded from being viewed by anybody, unless the owner places restrictions on the server to which the domain points. Restrictions on domains tend to be with who can purchase them and what content can be placed on them (for example kids domains and such). The former is enforced at purchase and the latter if contraveened can result in the revocation of the domain, but neither should cause some web users to be able to view the domain while some cannot.

Hope this helps :)

Darren Cronian | 30 June, 2006 at 1:43 pm

Thanks for that Kieran - interesting. So, what ISP do you use? The plot thickens! :)

Lee Harrison | 30 June, 2006 at 4:32 pm

Many Thanks Darren for highlighting this, I have left an e-mail with Tralliance, the body that is responsible for the .travel domain. According to the technology lads at The Travel Trust Association, it could be something to do with BT. Apparently the .travel domain was configured with the USA in mind, and apparently might not of been configured properly fot the UK Market.

I am waiting for a response from Tralliance and will keep you informed. In the mean time, I am recovering from an almighty hangover after attending The British Travel Agents awards.

We were the lucky winners for innovation for our blog, which we are migrating from http://www.selectworldtravel.blogspot.com to http://www.selectworld.travel, so it’s very important that we get the .travel domain mystery sorted out.

Darren Cronian | 30 June, 2006 at 6:00 pm

Congratulations on the Award Lee! It’s working on .gov.uk domains because a friend paid a visit without a problems.

Erin | 30 June, 2006 at 8:55 pm

I can see the site fine from my end aswell. I am using Shaw Cable (in Canada) and I am not having any problems viewing it…I hope you are able to solve the mystery :)

Darren Cronian | 30 June, 2006 at 9:01 pm

Thanks Erin. Good to see you and the blog is looking great.

Bernard Cayeux | 1 July, 2006 at 7:10 am

Hi,

I am based in Mauritius. My ISP is the main national one which won’t mean much to you even if it’s a subsidiary of Wanadoo. I could see the site perfectly from here.

I believe this .travel initiative is great and will increase the clients’ trust in small travel websites like mine.

If the authorities were not that laid back here, they would have registered themselves allowing me to get their clearance to opt for a .travel domain as well. (To register one needs to be member of a travel association and / or be registered with the local authorities which must first register themselves at Tralliance.)

Good luck to all and congrats to those who got registered.

Have a nice day!

Darren Cronian | 1 July, 2006 at 11:46 am

Very nice website Bernard.

I’m glad people are able to read the blog, and thanks for dropping by to let us know.

Lee Harrison | 4 July, 2006 at 9:02 am

Hi Again Darren, Here is the response from Tralliance.

Dear Lee,

The people having difficulty accessing your site should contact their respective ISPs. Most often this is a result of spam filters but they should definitely contact the ISPs. Please do contact us if the problem persists.

It is not true that this is a problem across the board for .travel registrants in the UK, but it is limited to a very few pockets of the UK. If you have any other questions or experience any problems, please let me know.

Kind Regards,

Nicole
Nicole D. Importico
Manager - Administration

Tralliance Corporation
220 Fifth Avenue, 20th fl
New York, NY 10001

Darren Cronian | 4 July, 2006 at 10:53 am

Thanks Lee.

I’ll drop Orange a support email this evening and see what they come back with. I’m not too confident it has anything to do with SPAM filters though - to me it’s more to do with DNS settings.

Darren

Kieran O'Shea | 4 July, 2006 at 2:18 pm

Wow a lot of comments on this since I posted mine - I must learn to check back more quickly after posting blog comments!

Darren, I don’t have an ISP as such - I’m accessing the internet from inside an academic institution which has direct access to the UK internet backbone via Janet. I guess that really means that me not experiencing any problems merely serves to show that the domain it’s self is fine rather than eliminating any issue with UK ISPs. Ah well ;)

I agree with your assesment about DNS over spam filters though. 99% of the time the inability to resolve any tld is as a result of DNS problems of some description. As a test, those not able to access this tld via their ISP’s DNS servers might like to try some more global DNS servers which are listed in a number of easily found locations on the web.

Darren Cronian | 4 July, 2006 at 8:38 pm

Hi Kieran, yes I’m convinced it’s to do with DNS - it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s more widespread than they are admitting. I’ve had someone view the blog via BT Yahoo and myself through Orange / Wanadoo, so we need to find more people using different ISP’s to try this out.

I’m also thinking about dropping an email to Web User, to see if they can pull some light on this - does anyone have any objections?

Darren Cronian | 4 July, 2006 at 8:47 pm

Okay everyone, you can now subscribe to comments on any blog post including this one. So when someone posts a comment you’ll get an email telling you that someone has responded.

Kevin May | 20 July, 2006 at 9:53 am

As chance would have it, a certain CEO of Tralliance - the company behind dot-travel - is in London this weekend, playing his part in a sponsorship deal for a motorcross function. Some good old-fashioned journalistic doorstepping will be the order of the day. I’ll keep you posted.

NB: It has emerged recently that Technorati does not recognise dot-travel domains.