Time for .SLH, .LHW or .Hilton?

You're hotel brand has a well established brand name so you have long since snapped up all the variations of .com; .org, .info., .biz and maybe even .travel if you thought it would help.

Those extenders (.com, .org, etc.) are called generic top level domains, or gTLDs. They exist and are administered by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. (ICANN basically rules the internet and, in that respect, rather resembles the Starfleet Federation.)

In its 10-year existence, ICANN has approved 21 gTLDs. Shortly, that number will increase from 21 to...infinity.

ICANN is developing a system that will permit individual applicants to obtain customized gTLDs. Currently, all gTLDs are in Roman characters that resemble English; ICANN notes that "non-English speakers will have the opportunity to express the whole of a domain name in characters that look like their language."

ICANN estimates that applying for one's own gTLD will cost approximately $185,000.

You can see the benefit for many brands where now they can have the hotel name.brand name instead of subdomains or other convaluted addresses. This will be particularly helpful for the soft brands where there is always a conflict between the hotels name and the brands name.
www.slh.com/langshott could become http://www.langshott.slh/.

It also makes e-mail easier. You no longer need to remember which Hilton that guy who is just an e-mail address in your contact bookworks at.
john.smith@hilton.com could become john.smith@belfast.hilton

The only question remains about who can afford the hefty price tag! The big brands certainly but can the smaller players?

A world with unlimited gTLDs will have enormously complex implications for trademark owners and small businesses. ICANN has just finished its first round of comments on the proposal, however, I am sure there will be more.