UAE hotels begin to register Arabic domain names
Dubai based DotShabaka Registry made the world's first cross-border Arabic top-level domain 'شبكة.' (pronounced dotshabaka) available to all businesses last month, and Middle East hotels have begun registering.
The new domain joins the likes of .com, .net and .org as one of the generic top level domains (gTLDs) on the internet, and companies can now apply for an address through registrars including openprovider, lexsynergy and instracorporation among others.
Carlson Rezidor Group has registered both of Radisson Blu and Park Inn by Radisson brand with dotshabaka, commenting that rather than registering individual hotels, the group intends to focus ecommerce efforts on driving traffic to the hotel pages of the brand websites.
Niklas Schlappkohl, director of eCommerce at The Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group said: “It is exciting to see the first generic Arabic gTLD as we do not have Arabic as one of our corporate websites languages yet. It is a key focus for us this year though.”
TI'ME Hotels and Kempinksi Hotels are also in the process of registering for the ‘شبكة.’ domain name. Kempinski Hotels vice president digital strategy & distribution Riko van Santen said that registration of kempinski.ae to host the brand site in Arabic will be “the next logical step to further strengthen our digital footprint in this region, where internet usage sees exponential growth”.
Mohamed Awadalla, CEO, TI'ME Hotels was similarly positive, claiming that an Arabic domain name supports the company’s efforts to have “a fully Arabic representation of our company on the World Wide Web”.
“Many of our guests are from the region and will appreciate an Arabic language platform. This demonstrates our commitment to Arabic culture and highlights our strategic aim to continuously enhance guest services,” he added.
Dusit International director of new media and communications, Yingrekha Langulasena compared the dotshabaka roll out to the launch Thai top-level domain name ‘.th’, arguing that that although the service helps the hotel group to reach local people more easily, it has taken a while to become widely used.
Langulasena said: “The most important thing to make dotshabaka a success is making sure we provide end to end experience; that means Arabic content, Arabic booking systems and even Arabic hotline to serve locals. For us, it would take a while to adapt this.”
DotShabaka general manager Yasmin Omar urged hoteliers in the Middle East to register for a DotShabaka domain name, commenting: “There is no better way for major hotel brands and hospitality businesses to target the highly affluent Arabic speaking audience than by registering a ‘شبكة.’ domain name. Not only would ‘شبكة.’ domain names hold greater relevance and meaning over .com equivalents, Arabic speakers will feel a greater sense of loyalty to these companies.”