Shortly before this year’s National Day holiday, domain name speculator Li Weike registered the domain 黄金周 (Golden Week) with the intent of turning it into profit. Yiyou, a travel agency based in Yunnan, offered him 50,000 yuan for the domain, 100 times what he paid to register it, but Mr. Li declined to sell.
Instead, he took the unusual step of renting out the name to Yiyou for 5000 yuan a month. Li’s reasoning is that the value of the name will only continue to rise; rather than let it lie dormant before selling, he figures he can make 10,000 yuan a year renting it out during the National Day and Labor Day Golden Weeks.
Yiyou, for its part, figures that people looking for information on Golden Week will enter the term into their browsers’ address bar, at which point they will load up the travel agency home page. Having used the domain name for just a few days, the agency found that its traffic had increased beyond its expectations.
Unfortunately, reports have not included the full domain name, and here at Danwei we have not been able to come up with a combination that links where it ought to. We welcome any pointers.
- Beijing Daily Messenger via Sina (Chinese): “Golden Week” domain available for lease, not sale; domain rental brings in 5000 yuan
- CNNIC (Chinese): Registration info for 黄金周 domain
- Yiyou homepage (Chinese): Yiyou Net