.travel rides rickshaws in India

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New Delhi, December 26: The contrast couldn't be more realistic. Tralliance Corporation is riding humble rickshaws in India to rope in travel and tourism industry to log into .travel registry, which is a newly created Internet domain for the sector. A subsidiary of theglobe.com, Tralliance specialises in offering products and services for e-commerce in the travel and tourism domain.

Teaming up with the Institute of Adventure Research, .travel is sponsoring the 2,000-mile Rickshaw Run from Kochi to Darjeeling. More than 30 teams from seven countries will drive for two weeks, beginning December 28, through the inhospitable terrain. There is no specific route. The drivers will have to cross designated checkpoints, though.

Says Ron Andruff, president, Tralliance, "Awakening the industry to the importance of getting their travel domain names to establish their profiles in the travel directory and then be found in search.travel is our goal. If the Rickshaw Run, in its absurd and amusing way, can assist us in this, then we will have achieved our expectations."

Adds Ashwini Kakkar, vice-chairman of Mercury Travels, " It's an initiative of travellers, by travellers and for travellers. It will provide amazing benefits to both providers and customers." Kakkar is also on the worldwide board of .travel.

The response is already tricking in. Apart from travel companies like Mercury Travels and Abercrombie & Kent, the Indian tourism ministry too has been reported to have registered a number of domain names, including incredible india travel. The Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh governments have shown interest in registering their iconic place names.

But is the trouble of renaming from .com/.org to .travel worth the advantages? Richa Goyal Sikri, director, Group Business Development, STIC Travel Group is not too sure. She says, "It's good for small and medium businesses, but it wasn't necessary for big established businesses. But now it's important to register the name anyway - at least to prevent it from being misused by others. Finally, it depends upon whether you want to use the web for disseminating information or transacting business."