The following was sent to major travel industry publications today:

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An open letter to all travel industry publication editors and publishers:

Please consider collectively calling for a stop to this embarrassment that is becoming the dot-travel fiasco! Say no to dot-travel advertising dollars until this issue is resolved for the benefit of the worldwide travel industry.

As I have been saying since late 2005, Tralliance (or any other for-profit company for that matter) is not the entity that should be controlling and administering the dot-travel Registry! With registration costs higher than any other TLD, and with a false and misleading "authentication process", dot-travel is truly becoming the next black eye on our industry - and it should be a shining triumph!

Now, an attempt is at hand to further elevate dot-travel to cash-cow status for a publicly traded company that has only the interests of its shareholders in mind.

This is not what our industry intended for dot-travel, is it???

I wholeheartedly supported and promoted the dot-travel TLD when first announced, but the administration of this Registry, headed by Mr. Michael S. Egan and theglobe.com, has done nothing to encourage the average travel agent - the base this registry was to be built upon and must be built upon - to acquire a dot-travel domain name, nor has it ceased to accept advertising dollars from non-dot-travel based web sites (and non dot-travel search engines), thereby diluting its own recognition and importance, and now it seeks to sell, on the secondary market, its own TLD domain names for huge profits!

I, and many others, in and out of the travel industry, have been receiving solicitations to (lease and/or) purchase many "premium" dot-travel domain names such as bargain.travel, traveldiscounts.travel, bestresorts.travel, parisfrance.travel, etc., even summerolympics.travel, which I believe is also a trademark infringement issue.

Coincidentally, these names being offered are owned by a company that wants to be known only as EM6, with a website at E-M6.com, whose domain name ownership identity was protected by registering the name with Domains By Proxy, a well known registrar that protects ownership information - for a fee. However, the principals of EM6, LLC include, according to Florida Corporate Records, Michael S. Egan's daughter, Sarah Egan Mooney, and her husband. Sarah Egan Mooney and EM6 are also listed as the domain owners in the dot-travel whois.

If you do not see the serious conflict of interest in these facts alone, please also consider the basic premises and values that dot-travel was supposed to be built upon, and the utter failure of Tralliance to uphold those values.

What right does Sarah Egan Mooney have to own dot-travel domain names? Has she been authenticated? If so, tell us how!
How did she come about owning all these premium dot-travel names? How would she sell these names to a buyer that was not 'authenticated'? Why weren't these names made available to the general travel industry? What will happen to other names that were "reserved" by Tralliance?

Dot-Travel CAN be saved by forming an industry guided non-profit organization to take over the Registry. Absent that happening, I see no future, and no advantage, in owning a dot-travel domain name.

Tralliance either needs to give up the Registry, and admit its failure of administration of the Registry, or the industry needs to take action against Tralliance, theglobe.com, and Michael S. Egan, et al, for "breach of contract" and fraudulent practices relating to the dot-travel Registry.

By the way, in case you may think I have ulterior motives, I own over 2000 travel related domain names, and none are dot-travel. Therefore a strong dot-travel registry would actually hurt my portfolio's value, where a weak dot-travel registry (thanks to Tralliance) has vastly increased my portfolio's value.

Dot-travel domain names are worth nothing on the secondary market BECAUSE of the authentication required, the cost of registration, etc.and the public's continued apathy to dot-travel due to Tralliance's failures of marketing the TLD. But, Mr. Egan is attempting to create a secondary market for these names by bypassing Tralliance's own rules of ownership, authentication and acquisition, and doing it quite covertly through another corporation 'owned' by his daughter.

My motives lie in a desire to see dot-travel become what it was supposed to become, and what I had heartily endorsed in my Travel Trade column of February 2005. I spoke of a "New Web World Dawning". I think it still can, just not with Tralliance leading the way!
See: http://www.homebasedtrade.com/2005/feb/02_05_tech_peter.htm

Do what you do best - do some investigative research and help shed light on these activities by Mr. Egan and company. I have no issue with companies making profits - just not when it is so two-faced and so detrimental to the livelihoods of so many good travel agents worldwide - your readership!

I implore you to take some action! As you can see by my article referenced above, I was duped also. Let's not let this continue.

Sincerely,
Peter E. Coloyan, Sr., MCC
President,
SmartTraveler.com, Inc.
IVLI, Inc.
1128 Royal Palm Beach Blvd. #471
Royal Palm Beach, FL 33411

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