BBC: Hotels.com Domain Name Originally Bought for $11 Million
There’s an audio interview with accompanying article currently on BBC News with David Roche, the President of Hotels.com Worldwide. According to Mr. Roche, the Hotels.com domain name was originally acquired for around $11 million in 2001.
From the article:
“Speaking to Today business presenter Simon Jack, the entrepreneur explained how the company took control of the market using the internet.
In 2001 the company purchased the name Hotels.com for around $11m and at the time this was thought to be “a crazy sum of money”.
“Now we look back we look back and think, what a bargain,” he added.
When you listen to the audio interview, it seems like Mr. Roche couldn’t recall the exact price, but the $11 million region is the approximate price that he remembered.
Of course, Hotels.com was acquired many years ago for $1.1 billion. Clearly, the $11 million acquisition was a good decision for the company. I often use the Hotels.com story to potential buyers of my domain names as evidence for how an exact match domain name (EMD) can also be used by a company as a standalone brand.
Should this domain name sale be added to various top ten domain sales charts, including the one maintained by Domaining.com, it would rank as the second largest domain sale of all time. The highest value sale remains Sex.com at $13 million.
This figure was an interesting tidbit from an interesting interview.
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About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has sold seven figures worth of domain names in the last five years. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest.Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Google + | Facebook | Email
Jay
Actually not. Based on http://www.usinflationcalculator.com, $11 million in 2001 dollars equals $13,551,440.68 in 2010 dollars, which is more than $13 million sex.com sale in 2010.
Elliot Silver
You don’t judge past sales based on inflation today, otherwise all sales would have to be revised and it doesn’t really make sense to do that.
Jay
Elliot, sure you should recalculate it. Each good domainer is an investor and each good investor has to calculate inflation. How do you plan your retirement without inflation? Don’t be silly. If you want to compare nominal values, then don’t say just value, because real value depends on year and inflation very much!
Elliot Silver
I am not calculating the present value of the deal. I am noting the purchase price which doesn’t change.
Jonathan
OK when you consider what the original domain registration outlay was taking in to account inflation in any currency !!!
AB
Hi Elliot’s Blog,
Does this sale increasing the value of my eHotels-3d.info
Best gards
Elliot Silver
Awesome name.
AB
I will considering selling for 1 million American dollars
Elliot Silver
I’d recommend buying every single other TLD for this keyword. Can’t go wrong!
Vegas Lover
Lol. I don’t know if you guys are kidding or serious, but it’s hilarious.
Elliot Silver
Sorry thought the sarcasm was obvious. I really hope that name isn’t registered.. I was assuming it was a joke.
Dummy Domainer
I just registered it! Yours for $69
Elliot Silver
I sure hope not!
AB
Ha…don’t worry E, this is 110% a joke
Bill
Agree with Jay 100%
You should have recorded rate tables and then adjusted rate sales tables. This could all be done with some programming, very simple. I think DN Journal hard code/records things so that would be a pain in the ass. However if it was in some db, then its super simple.
However most domainers dont factor in opportunity cost, time value of money, inflation ect…
Elliot Silver
It would be beneficial for sure, but impractical.
J
This is a great end user case study.
David Roche really needs to be interviewed to get his ideas as to how much Hotels.com domain contributed to the overall company success. My basic question would be – if the company went through the past 10 years without Hotels.com domain; with everything else being equal marketing-wise, how much less would the sales be.
I would guess it would be at least 10% less, but perhaps as much at 50% less. It would be very interesting to get his overall ideas.
Louise
Maybe even alot less than that . . . Hotels.com is a brand!
Dummy Domainer
I own i3dHotelsFaceQuotes.com
As it contains 5 of the hottest domaining niches all in one:
1) i (iPhone!)
2) 3D (3D TVs and printing?!)
3) Hotels
4) Face (Facebook!)
5) Quotes (Insurance, loans!)
I am asking for just $5m. Please share with your Twitter followers.
Thanks,
DD
BFitz
Who was the seller at $11MM?