Get first dibs on .travel domain names — Governments to

As stated by a press release today, .travel domain names will be first offered to governments to snap up country, state, and city domains. For example, the Brazilian government will be able to register Brazil.travel ahead of other interested entities such as tourism firms.

The full press release is here. It is partially reprinted below:

Tralliance Corporation, Fresh York, the .travel Registry, in cooperation with the World Tourism Organization, has affirmed a priority right to the nations of the world to register their respective country, cities, and place names in the .travel Registry.
Each country and city destination, as well as UNESCO Word Heritage Sites, will now be able to register their valuable place names in the .travel Registry, which will commence registrations in the fall of 2005…

…The priority right provides individual nations with the ability to register their domain names with the .travel Registry ahead of other legitimate travel or tourism entities, which may share the same names, have access to those names. The prioritization will overcome the frustration felt by governments that characterized earlier Top Level Domain introductions, wherein many nations were pre-empted from registering domain names for their countries, cities, heritage and sacred sites…