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VisitTnT.com Sold

October 29, 2009 by Taran Rampersad

Via Raul Bermudez of Parodice Games on the main computing email list of T&T: This link shows that VisitTnT.com, formerly owned by the TDC, was sold for $5,500 U.S.

That was actually a really great domain name for a tourism site for Trinidad and Tobago. I suppose someone didn't think it was important - or they really needed $5,500 U.S. Maybe a local business bought it when they saw it was available; I don't see anyone wanting the domain otherwise.

Or maybe they were just incompetent.

Of course, Trinidad isn't known for its tourism. Tobago is. Trinidad's just becoming the dumping ground for industrial pollution that the developed world doesn't want.

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Comments

Even visittobago.com is foreign owned...

October 29, 2009 by Edmund Gall, 39 weeks 1 day ago
Comment id: 56

Even if they wanted to brand Tobago online, visittobago.com is foreign owned.

However, when I'm looking for info on a destination, I invariably start by entering its name in a search engine - Google.  The top three non-sponsored links in Google are, in order:
- Wikipedia's info on T&T
- The official TDC-owned website, gotrinidadandtobago.com
- The T&T Government's website, www.gov.tt

So if most folks start by typing google.com in their address bar, rather than visittnt.com, maybe selling that domain isn't a bad thing.  At least, one would hope that they sold it because they thought 3,000-5,000 page views per month was below their target.  A comparison of both domains via www.compete.com shows that gotrinidadandtobago.com has consistently out-performed visittnt.com (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/visittnt.com+gotrinidadandtobago.com/)

So maybe they're justified in selling it.

Well...

October 30, 2009 by Taran Rampersad, 39 weeks 1 day ago
Comment id: 61

my opinion on their rendition of VisitTnT.com, having looked at the site off and on, was that it wasn't well put together for search engines. Also, there wasn't much spent on media advertising to highlight the site that I can tell. And it wasn't really much of a resource.

So, sure, maybe they sold it off because they were underperforming. But lets be real. People don't think Trinidad and Tobago for tourism - Trinbagonians certainly don't. So why would you want to search for it anyway? So they needed a serious foreign tourism advertising blitz that would create the brand. They never did it, or if they did, the crime situation caused people to shun it.

Now you have these people whose government job is to reach targets for a government website on tourism. And they can't work against the bad press coming out of the country.

Thats one of the reasons sports are so good for the economy. ;-) It's a positive influence on foreign opinion about a country.

"Sure, they burn tires on the highway - but they can really play cricket!", unfortunately, doesn't seem to balance positively. So maybe - just maybe - TDC could have done a better job, but how much better?

No, I think they should have maintained the domain in the hope that things would eventually turn around. It's already funded... Duh...

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