The recent discussion of geodomains got me thinking of ways to identify tourist destinations and seeing if there were any available matching domains. Newspaper travel sections highlight well known destinations but also try to highlight locations that are not as well known. The articles themselves are advertising for those destinations and pique the interest of vacationers looking for somewhere new to visit.
NY Post travel section
I started with the NY Post travel section which had a feature on West Florida. This is a less popular destination than the East coast. Naples, Florida was the first destination mentioned but that is well covered. It mentioned the City Pier in Naples but I found NaplesPier.com which is a nice developed website covering this attraction.
Next “head to the swankiest nabe in the south, Port Royal (where homes regularly top $30m), for the emptiest sands, as most people wrongly assume that these are fenced off.” PortRoyalFlorida.com is up for sale and is currently parked. A Google search didn’t show up any good developed websites so there may be an opportunity here.
Finally a comment from a local realtor suggests Marco Island. Marco-island-Florida.com and MarcoIsland.com are nicely developed and seem to have this destination covered.
NY Times travel section
In the travel section in the NY Times, the article on Tangier, Morocco caught my eye. Morocco.com has a section on Tangier but its not very impressive. Searching Google for “tangier morocco” didn’t show up any nice websites for this destination. TangierMorocco.com is parked but Tangier-Morocco.com is available. Though it is long and prone to misspellings, quality development should allow it to rank well. The open question is whether there is sufficient interest and money to be make.
Irish Times travel
I noticed an article on the aussie outback where you can stay at ranches. OutbackRanches.com seems to be available. With development this could this be the website reviewing and selling vacations to ranches in the Australian outback. There is an Outback Steakhouse which is something to be careful of when choosing a domain.
London Times
Ski hostels were on the menu at the London Times travel section and might make for an interesting niche. SkiHostels.com is parked but .net and .org are available. Those that use hostels may have less money so I am not sure if this would be a lucrative niche but it sounds interesting.
Sydney Morning Herald
An article on Canberra, the capital of Australia had me checking out this city as a holiday destination. Surprisingly I didn’t see many high quality geodomain websites (did I miss something?) except for Canberra.com.au. Canberra.com is a company website and Canberra.net and .org are parked. For a capital city of a large country, I would have expected a lot more competition.
While this was not an in depth exploration of the destinations mentioned, I think you will agree that there were some leads worth investigating some more. Why search for destinations all by yourself, when there are paid writers hired by the newspapers to discover them for you. As always do your homework before you buy.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Apparently, not only is Tangiers, Morocco prone to misspelling, but so is Sydney (or is that Sidney!) Australia.
Nevertheless, definitely a thought-provoking piece that highlights a great way to pick up possible geo-domains. Thanks for another well put together article.
Hi Alan,
Actually Tangier or Tangiers is correct. It is interesting though because this type of ambiguity falls under the “risks to geo-domaining” post!
The Sidney mistake is all mine. Name of person instead of name of city. Am correcting that. Thanks for catching it.
Definitely some leads worth investigating. International newspapers of major metropolia are a goood source of inspiration, great piece Barry