EnCirca, a domain name provider for the travel and tourism industry, announced that plans are underway to develop an online portal for Asia travel at visit.asia. The website will be the first of its kind serving as a travel gateway exclusively for Asia-based tourism. The focus of visit.asia will be to serve as a social networking platform centered on travel to Asia.

 

“Visit.Asia will be a gateway for travel and tourism resources related to Asia”, says Tom Barrett, President of EnCirca. “The design of visit.asia will reflect the diversity of numerous cultures within the Asia continent”, added Barrett.

Visit.Asia has been awarded to EnCirca by the DotAsia Registry under its .Asia Pioneer Domains Program. The portal will feature content from Asia-based tourism boards as well as user-generated content such as travel videos, pictures and blogs. Tourism boards throughout Asia are eligible to participate in this project.

Participating tourism boards will be able to act as editorial hosts for their particular destination, a feature that will enable them to distribute promotional content as well as news and marketing messages for their brand.

“Visit.Asia promises to be an essential resource for travelers planning a trip to Asia”, said Edmon Chung, CEO, at DotAsia. He further added, “visit.asia could become an excellent tool for travel-related businesses interested in reaching the Asian market. The adoption of visit.asia as a core web address for this initiative is a testimony for the value of the “.Asia” domain above and beyond other generic domain extensions. “.Asia” represents value for initiatives to identify their commitment to the Asia market and a web address that is relevant and easy to remember for the end user.”

According to the United Nation’s World Tourism Organization’s World Tourism Barometer, Asia is the world’s “star performer” in 2007 in terms of tourism growth. This growth is expected to continue in 2008 with the run-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics in China, which will benefit neighboring destinations throughout Asia