Answers.Travel Sold For Over $3 Million?

by

In a press release today, travel411 says they acquired the domain Answers.Travel for a staggering, $3.3 Million dollars, in an all cash transaction, which closed in the third quarter of 2008.

According to the release:

“””””Answers.travel claims to have a network of over 20,000 travel help desks, concierge services, tour guides, and travel information desks in every major and smaller travel destination across the world. They seriously get all of your travel questions answered and point you in the right direction. If they don’t have the question on file, they route it to the appropriate specialist in the destination city/country and have the answer emailed directly to the user within 1 to 3 business days. This site is a dream for all travelers. Questions as simple as “Can I travel to Mexico from Canada with a Felony on my record” to “At what times can I see blue dolphins in the island of San Marquez”, anything at all travel related is answered by www.Answers.travel””””

Got to tell you I’m highly suspect of this transaction.

There are some really good .travel domains going up for auction at DomainFest in a few weeks, including free.travel; Europe.travel; City.travel, Information.travel and Fly.travel and those are just the live domains.

Each has a minimal reserve.

I wonder about the timing of the press release.  If the transaction closed sometime, in the third quarter ending September 30, 2008, why announce it over three months later?

This statement from the press release seems to becoming from the registry itself:

“”The .travel registry started in 2004 and has been growing rapidly ever since.”””

That’s news to me.

How has .travel grown rapidly or at all?

I don’t own 1 .travel domain, do any of you?

I know there was some software involved in the sale, as it was a site, not just a domain that sold, but the site as it sits today has just minor traffic (alexa ranking of over 4.7M).

If in fact this is a valid sale then god bless all those involved and what a boost for the extension.  It will make the DomainFest auction pretty exciting.

But until someone can get confirmation, let’s just say I’m hesitant to put it on top of the domain sales list for the year.

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  2. MHB says

    Ron

    I tend to agree with you, but if it is BS then the question must be asked where did the release come from, what is the purpose of it.

    Is the purpose of the release an attempt to get traffic to answers.travel or is it to increase the perceived value of .travel domains?

  3. RegFeeNames.com says

    This doesnt right?

    I dont know anyone that owns a .travel domain or know anyone that would pay over $3mil for this domain.

    I just visited the site and I nearly typed answers.travel.com instead of answers.travel

    I cant see the .travel domain working or doing well at DomainFest

    .com is still king!

    Regards,

    Robbie

  4. Ron Jackson says

    Based on the wording of the “release” I would say both. If I were going to try to hype the “value” of .travel I would use a more realistic number than $3.3 million so that someone might actually believe it. Maybe $3,300 – but that could be stretching it, especially since we have never had a single verified .travel sale reported at ANY price.

  5. George Kirikos says

    One can read the most recent .travel registry report at:

    http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/monthly-reports/travel/tralliance-200809.pdf

    204,279 total registered domains, but 177,320 of them are at one registrar, NamesBeyond.com. GoDaddy, NSI, Tucows, Dotster and eNom don’t even carry .travel names. Register.com has a whopping 10 names.

    As I said elsewhere, I’ll be buying .travel domains the same time I start buying .biz names — when hell freezes over. 🙂

  6. David J Castello says

    I’d put all my chips on the fact that so many dotTravel generics are being auctioned at DomainFest. None have reserves higher than the 1K-5K range.

    The problem I have here is that if this is another PT Barnum type ploy (and the mainstream media gets ahold of it) it will reflect poorly on the entire domain name industry during a time when serious investors are starting to give us a fresh look. And for that reason alone domain industry journalists need to get to the bottom of this – and fast.

  7. Elliot says

    “have a network of over 20,000 travel help desks, concierge services, tour guides, and travel information desks in every major and smaller travel destination across the world.”

    Hmmm… and not even a phone number listed on the contact form to call them…

  9. Ron Jackson says

    The same contact person in this press release sent out several releases last year hyping .travel sites. If his intent with this one was to drum up interest in .travel domains at Domainfest I think he just shot himself in the foot. This release will almost certainly generate nothing but ridicule and attention to the fact that .travel has been a flop.

  10. Rob Sequin says

    Right. All BS.

    1. The domain was registered 10 months ago in March 2008.

    2. These sites are on the same IP according to DomainTools.com:

    Answers.travel
    Chicagoillinois.travel
    Comparison.travel
    Local.travel
    Londonengland.travel
    Losangelescalifornia.travel
    Miamiflorida.travel
    Mixedsearch.com
    Pricerunner.travel
    Sandiegocalifornia.travel
    Shop.travel
    Superpages.travel
    Yell.travel
    Yellowbook.travel

    The ones I visited look just like Answers.travel.

    3. Here is their website title: Cheap Airline Tickets, Discount Hotels, Airfare, Cheap Flights, Air Travel – Answers.travel

    4. Here is there meta description Are you tired of opening multiple browsers and entering your travel destinations and times over and over again? We offer a tool to search 12 travel sites at the same time! ”

    5. Right from their About Us page: Answers.travel enables you to search the top travel sites at the same time in order for you to save time. Our philosophy is that there are so many travel sites on the web, who really has the lowest price? On top of that, who has the time to go through each site one by one? We offer a tool that enables you to enter your travel information once and search each travel web site with a click.

    Doesn’t feel like a $3million dollar business with 20,000 help desks.

    I would say this taints the .travel domains in the auction… not that they were going to get any bids anyway.

  12. M. Menius says

    At such a high price, one has to wonder. The release is confusing as it heralds the domain itself, but then reports Answers.travel claims to have an existing “network”.

    So technically it sounds more like a business being acquired than a pure, undeveloped domain name sale. Would have to be.

  15. Duane says

    I would take Answers.travel if the registry pays me 10 years registration fee.

    I see .travel names ready for the junkyard just like .pro and all other want to be next top tld.

    We have enough options out there cc , com, net, info and others .

    No one needs a .travel .pro .magazin .paper or a ” .BStld

  19. BullS says

    Just like my site says…BullShitWebsites dot com!!!

    Have never heard about travel.

    Next will be toilet dot toilet.com since every needs to go to the toilet.
    A map of all the public toilets in the world.

  21. belshass says

    funny how they point out in the release..

    “however it is obvious by this acquisition that single worded concise domain names will always command top tier valuations even if it’s not .com. ”

    even if it’s not .com ..

    kind of a give away what they really feel about .com’s .. being better

  25. Steve says

    I just used Answers.travel and asked a travel question. I got an answer back within like 4-5 hours. If this was a BS sale or not, I like the service. Has anyone contacted the company to see what they paid for it??

  26. M. Kennedy says

    Not to mention the press release is very amateurish, definitely not written by a PR pro or novice. Lots of rookie mistakes: “They seriously get all of your travel questions answered and point you in the right direction,” doesn’t meet basic objectivity, especially after trying to establish objectivity with prior verb “claims.” Also, the use of “they” is a bit awkward here and later as a singular entity should be referred to us “it” or “the company” — or even Travel411:

    The .travel registry started in 2004 and has been growing rapidly ever since. They claim …

    It is proper to address the company by name in opening paragraph even if you’ve referenced it in headline / subhead.

    The last line is pure opinion and should be attributed through use of quotes:

    The .travel domain name may become very popular in a short period of time, however it is obvious by this acquisition that single worded concise domain names will always command top tier valuations even if it’s not .com.

    Also, the source here is the giveaway. It doesn’t establish what its relationship to the story is. If they are a news source breaking a story on a paid newswire, that’s just not something I’ve ever seen. If they are a paid consultant representing buyer or seller, that should be established. Basic PR 101.

  29. iGuide says

    I agree, .travel is a poor domain choice because it will always be unknown, even if it looks good in the browser. The value of answers.travel should be about $3300, not $3,300,000, in my opinion, and I’ve valuated .travel before. Better to spend your $3300 on travelanswers.com in my opinion.

  31. Mazamitla says

    I have some .travel 3 from a very touristic places, why because the .com was taken, .travel and has no lot value at sedo.com; they work, but course I prefer the .com travel it’s a long word.