London Tourist Office
Kamal Chunchie Way,
London E16 1ZE,
United Kingdom
+44 343 222 1234
Visit London
City of London Information Center
St Pauls Churchyard
London EC4M 8BX
United Kingdon
+44 20 7332 3456
There are 4 more City of London Info Centers
History of Visit London.com
Early days of the domain
Registration date of Visit London.com:
02-11-1998
The VisitLondon.com domain
was initially owned by Russ Smith
1999 it was listed for sale at 2500 USD.
Evolution of the website
Visit London
was formerly known as
London Tourist Board
and Convention Bureau.
The organisation was established
16 05 1963.
The founderrs were representatives
of the London Tourist Industry
led by Charles Forte (1908 - 2007).
Forte was the founder
of the Hotel chain Forte Hotels Group.
The Forte Hotels Group
was later dissolved
but the family was able
to relaunch multiple Grand Hotels
that are listed in the
Grand Hotels of the World.com
The London Tourist Board
was carrying out information
for International visitors
in cooperation with
the British Travel Association,
today Visit Britain.com
LTB (London Tourist Board)
worked in partnership
with the Greater London Council.
1986 LTB was relaunched as
London Visitor and Convention Bureau
At that time LTB was squeezed
between the conservative government
of Margaret Thatcher
and the left wing London Major
Ken Livingstone.
22-06-1997 was registered
LondonTown.com
07-11-1997 an early internet user registered
the pure Geo Domain London.com.
Too expensive to buy and too generic
London.com was not choosen to become
the future domain
of the London Tourist Board.
Instead London.com was aquired
by a company that also bought other pure geo domains
LondonTown.com,
London Tourist Office website from 12-02-1998
10-12-1999 Registration of the Domain
LondonTouristBoard.com
the first website had the same content
than LondonTower.com
2000
At the turn of the century
LondonTown.com was a London Tourist Board Member.
London Town.com website from 28-02-2000
2003 LTB (London Tourist Board)
became Visit London,
a private company
funded partly by partnership subscriptions
and commercial activity.
At that time the VisitLondon.com domain
was acquired.
The price of the transaction was not published.
first version of the new VisitLondon.com website
11-04-2003
the visit Logo was not yet created
The London Tourist board decided
to focus on a new domain format
starting with "visit"
rather than promoting a domain format
ending with "town".
The same happened in Stockholm
16 10 2003
a major markeing campain was organised
to launch the new Visit website.
This campaign attracted other cities
all around the world
to also adopt "visit"
for their communication.
LondonTwon.com continued
as a seperate website,
Instead of calling itself
"The official Internet site for London"
a new slogan came in place.
"the Number One Internet site for London".
The site at a time one of the most popular
destination site in the world
declining over time
and
stopped
dispaying content two decades later
03-04-2024.
2012 Olympics version of the VisitLondon.com website, 24-04-2012
At the time of the Olympics,
allways remembered for the video
the Queen made with James Bond,
the "Visit London" logo had not yet been created.
Screenshot of VisitLondon 24-09-2024
Today VisitLondon.com
is by far the most popular destination site for London
and one of the most popular
destination sites in the world.
Visit London.com
is managed by the Agency
London and Partners
The agency is owned by
the Mayor of London,
the Travel Association (ABTA),
London Chamber of Commerce and Industry,
Society of London Theatre
and UK Hospitality.
The agency has managed the website since
the aquisition of the Visit London.com domain.
Visit London is edited in 6 languages.
It always uses VisitLondon.com
as the only domain name
English Version VisitLondon.com
French Version VisitLondon.com/fr
German Version VisitLondon.com/de
Italian Version VisitLondon.com/it
Spanish Version VisitLondon.com/es
"Vist London"
is one of the websites
that has contributed
to create the "Visit Phenomenon" domains so popular,
adopted by more and more Travel websites.