Welsh Support Own gTLD, See Benefit For Business

A majority of Welsh businesses and consumers believe Wales should have its own generic Top Level Domain, either .WALES or .CYMRU, a report has found.”The Economic Benefits of an Internet Domain Name for Wales report, produced by economic and policy consultancy LE Wales, suggests that 59 per cent of Welsh businesses believe Wales should have its own domain name, and 40 per cent think such a name could help promote their business within Wales,” according to a report on Wales Online.The report was commissioned by Nominet, the .UK registry, who has held discussions with the Welsh government regarding the possibility of applying to ICANN for the gTLD.”Surveys conducted for the report suggest 69 per cent of Welsh consumers believe that Wales should have its own domain space.”Of those businesses that were questioned for the report around 30 per cent thought that a ‘.WALES’ domain name would help promote their business outside Wales and internationally, whilst around 20% per cent thought that a ‘.CYMRU’ domain name would have this effect.”The report suggests that £2bn in sales could be gained by businesses using a ‘.WALES’ domain name at the expense of those using current domain names such as ‘.COM’ and ‘.co.uk’.”The report goes on to say that “Nominet itself does not have a preference for either option, but the survey suggests slightly more Welsh consumers prefer a ‘.CYMRU’ domain in comparison to other popular domains such as ‘.co.uk’ and ‘.com’ (59% and 72% respectively) than prefer ‘.WALES’ to the same domains (53% and 70%.”The full Wales Online report is available at www.walesonline.co.uk/business-in-wales/business-news/2011/11/09/internet-domain-name-for-wales-or-cymru-could-help-business-91466-29742711/