Athens.com.au speculations?

[Drop.com.au]

Athens.com.au is dropping today, and although it does not rank as high in traffic terms as BlueMountains.com.au, and Townsville.com.au - you would expect that being a GEO domain for a world capital city and a major vacation destination (even if you are just landing there to get to the Greek Islands), that it should fetch a good dollar. Or will it?

Anyone care to start a conversation thread on Geo and Travel domains? For the class of domainers that seek out geo names; is it the city / location keyword, is it just about traffic, is it both, or something else all together?

George

 

[snoopy]

Personally I'd guess $300-$400. Not comparable to popular Australian tourist destinations. The fit isn't all that good with the extension and it is never going to be the prime name in its niche.

 

[Drop.com.au]

But wouldn't you argue that considering Melbourne is the 3rd or 4th largest Greek city in the world, that Athens is a very popular outbound destination?

Population-wise it goes: Athens, Thessaloniki, Melbourne, Los Angeles (with Melb and LA switching spots according to how the pop. stats are measured)

Also, selling air travel tickets to Athens would reap a bigger return for a travel agent?

George

 

[soj]

From what I have heard with travel agents, they don't make much (if any) from the sale of flights, but from accommodation/tour bookings. I know a few Greeks here in Melbourne and most of them make the trip out to Greece (via Athens of course) every year. So that definitely gives you a nice market for flights, but most would have family/property to stay with.

I'm with snoopy, I can't see the price going more than $300-$400

 

[snoopy]

But wouldn't you argue that considering Melbourne is the 3rd or 4th largest Greek city in the world, that Athens is a very popular outbound destination?

Population-wise it goes: Athens, Thessaloniki, Melbourne, Los Angeles (with Melb and LA switching spots according to how the pop. stats are measured)

Also, selling air travel tickets to Athens would reap a bigger return for a travel agent?

George

The search stats are what they are, it is significant but it isn't huge either.

The main thing with the name is fit though, it doesn't really fit with the extension. Now I can see how it could be used but it has a very manufactured "not quite right" feel to it. For Australians going to athens I think they'd expect to be visiting sites like athens.com, athens.gr and local (Australian) travel agent sites.