4) Cologne Cathedral / Kölner Dom - Cologne

5) Bundestag - Berlin

6) Heidelberg Castle - Heidelberg

7) Koenigsalle - Duesseldorf

8) Rhine Valley
between Bad Godesberg and Rüdesheim

9) Holstein Gate - Luebeck

10) Mosel Valley - between Trier and Koblenz



History of the website
and Tourist Info Germany
Visit Germany.com
Domain registration date: 15-08-1997
The domain was registered during
the early years of the internet,
eventually before
the German Tourist Board
had the idea to make a website.

Visit Germany.com is on the list
of the first visit domains

Visit Germany.de
Domain registration date: before 2003

Germany.travel
Domain registration date: 13-01-2006

deutschland-tourismus.de
no longer used


Timeline

1948
German National Tourist Board
was founded 25-05-1948

The German name is
Deutsche Zentrale
für Tourismus (DZT).
Initially called
"Deutsche Zentrale
für Fremdenverkehr"

The organisation was founded
before the foundation of
Bundesrepublik Deutschland
20-09-1949.
Ludwig Erhard (1897 - 1977),
later Minister of Economy
and Chancelor of Germany
participated in the foundation of DZT.

The organisation promotes
Germany as a travel destination.
The organisation is linked
to a Government division,
the Ministry for Economy
and Klimate Protection (BMWK)

The web presence started
with the domain
deutschland-tourismus.de.
The domain is no longer in active use.

The current president of DTZ
is Petra Hedorfer.

The organisation has many members
like DB.de (Deutsche Bahn)
or LH.com (Lufthansa Airline),
Hotel Corporations
Airports
or Trade Fair Organisers.
Other members are
national Tourist Boards
like Visit Berlin.com .
or Visit NRW.com

The organisation
missed to register the domain
VisitGermany.com
during the early times of the internet
before 15-08-1997
when it was still available.

They also missed
to aquire it when
domains were less valuable.

2005 Launch of the extension .travel
with the idea to create an alternative
to .com for travel related websites.

In the following years
hundreds of other new sTLD
were also launched
with the result
that al thses new TLD
created confustion
and .com is the only TLD
with global recognition .

Today
While .com is rknown all over the world
and ccTlds like .de are know
in and beyond
their respective countries (Germany)
newTLDs
like .edu, .coop, .travel, .shop, .gmbh
.reise, .haus, .hoteles
have small usage.

There are 160 milion acitve .com,
18 million active .de
there are only 18.000 active .travel domains,
less than 0.01% of all active websites

Some Businesses and Organisations
that have a dot .travel domain
redirect it to .com
example Booking.travel,
Tripadvisor.travel
Lufthansa.travel
all redirect to .com

The Morroco Tourist board
that used Morocco.travel in 2009
realised that the extension
confused internet users
and switched to .com
after aquiring
the domain Visit Morocco.com

Also Tourist confuse Germany.travel
with Germany.com
and there they get a lovely cat
that does not want to be disturbed
and who's owner registered
the domain 20-05-1994


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Visit Domains
and Tourist Boards
in neighbouring countries
Germany has borders with 9 countries
Check out other Tourist Information

Visit Austria.com
Visit Belgium.com
Visit Czechia.com
Visit Denmark.com
Visit France.com
Visit Netherlands.com
Visit Luxembourg.com
Visit Poland.com
Visit Switzerland.com