eTN Executive Talk: A conversation with .travel CEO Ed Cespedes | eturbonews.com

eTN: Where does .travel stand now? Ed Cespedes: In terms of names outstanding, slightly north of a quarter million, and in terms of adoption, we’ve seen some excellent adoption by major destinations in the world. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Argentina, El Salvador, Egypt, Poland, Cancun, Utah, Arizona, South Carolina, Alabama. So we’re starting to see the snowball pick up a little speed. eTN: Have your expectations been met? Ed: I would say no. We have high expectations of the domain. eTN: Based on the business model I saw, from day one it was quite… Ed: We feel successful, but we don’t feel successful enough, and we feel it critical that… we are at an important time now, that the industry really begins to take the domain name up. A lot of things are happening – the .com world is becoming saturated; new top-level domains are coming out, and it’s going to cause consumer confusion. We feel really that now is the time for the travel industry to really identify itself with its own domain.