closed Appraisal for space tourism domains? spacetourismexperience.com, weddingsinspace.com

[PersonOnForum]

Hi,

I would appreciate any appraisals or advice on these domains.

I've held onto them for a while, waiting for the industry to catch up, and now that the first public space flights are set to begin next year, I'm going to start looking for buyers.

Sell now or wait a while?


Space Tourism Experience

spacetourismexperience.com

astronautfortheday.com

astronautforaday.com

astronautexperience.com

astronautexperience.co.uk


Weddings in Space

weddingsinspace.com

zerogravityweddings.com

spacevows.com

orbitalweddings.com

weightlessweddings.com


Parties, Gigs, Concerts in Space

giginspace.com

gig-in-space.com

space-gigs.com

spaceconcerts.com

party-in-space.com

space-parties.com


As I said, any suggestions would be hugely appreciated.

 

[katherine]

Some are not bad. Like:

• astronautforaday.com
• orbitalweddings.com

Good advertising potential.

The cons:

• emerging market
• not a lot of end users I presume

It could take decades for these domains to appreciate, because the market is embryonic. Imo.
Good luck

 

[PersonOnForum]

The cons:

• emerging market
• not a lot of end users I presume

It could take decades for these domains to appreciate, because the market is embryonic. Imo.
Good luck

Thanks for the input, Katherine.

It is a nascent market, though things have really started to pick up. We're talking years, rather than decades. Aside from the Virgin flights next year, there are offerings from XCOR, Armadillo Aerospace and Jeff Bezos (Amazon) on their way to market.

The market for suborbital space tourism was recently estimated at $1.6billion over the next decade, which is not huge, but pretty big.

The problem, as you mention, is the number of end users. There need to be enough competing resale agents for them to want to stand out. Right now, there are less than 100 signed up to resell Virgin Galactic tickets. Not sure about the other enterprises. Naturally, I will test their demand, but wanted some idea of values first. They are mainly high-end luxury experience/holiday sellers, with strong existing brands, so plenty of cash to throw around but not necessarily keen on an off-brand domain.

I may well have luck with a forward-thinking end user but if not, any suggestions on current value as an investment?

Thanks.

 

[Gerry]

The cons:

• emerging market
  [*]not a lot of end users I presume

• This I see as the biggest downfall to all these names, at this moment.
  
  At this moment, your customer base is very small simply because of the a.) cost per seat and b.) lack of flights, both of which are also defining the customer base.
  
  There are a couple of novelty names in there that might garner interest from the curious onlooker point of view.
  
  But I do not see a massive market, this is a narrow niche market, and if you get offers, consider selling. Or be prepared to hang on to them for 5-10 years.
  
  The first wedding in space will surely happen just from the uniqueness but the question remains, when?

 

[Gerry]

any suggestions on current value as an investment?

Thanks.

Current value is what you paid for them now plus x5 years of renewal fees going forward.

 

[Gerry]

The market for suborbital space tourism was recently estimated at $1.6billion over the next decade, which is not huge, but pretty big.

You can read and read about all the potential that is there but that potential has to come to fruition. As I see it, 1.6b over the next decade is miniscule to its actual potential so who in the hell came up with that number calculated over the next decade is daft.

Depending on the successful launches and recoveries (landing) of the vessels, putting people in orbit as a "sport" is no easy task. Plus, it will take a fleet of vehicles from all sides to make this a viable industry.

 

[barrysanders]

Thanks for the input, Katherine.

It is a nascent market, though things have really started to pick up. We're talking years, rather than decades. Aside from the Virgin flights next year, there are offerings from XCOR, Armadillo Aerospace and Jeff Bezos (Amazon) on their way to market.

The market for suborbital space tourism was recently estimated at $1.6billion over the next decade, which is not huge, but pretty big.

The problem, as you mention, is the number of end users. There need to be enough competing resale agents for them to want to stand out. Right now, there are less than 100 signed up to resell Virgin Galactic tickets. Not sure about the other enterprises. Naturally, I will test their demand, but wanted some idea of values first. They are mainly high-end luxury experience/holiday sellers, with strong existing brands, so plenty of cash to throw around but not necessarily keen on an off-brand domain.

I may well have luck with a forward-thinking end user but if not, any suggestions on current value as an investment?

Thanks.

Where did you find out about the 100 resale agents?

 

[PersonOnForum]

At this moment, your customer base is very small simply because of the a.) cost per seat and b.) lack of flights, both of which are also defining the customer base.

There are a couple of novelty names in there that might garner interest from the curious onlooker point of view.

But I do not see a massive market, this is a narrow niche market, and if you get offers, consider selling. Or be prepared to hang on to them for 5-10 years.

The first wedding in space will surely happen just from the uniqueness but the question remains, when?

Yep. I agree that cost per seat right now is limiting customer base (to the mid-hundreds, which is negligible). And obviously lack of flights. The flights will solve themselves- even at current $200k per seat, there are plenty of takers. Most have been snapped up by celebrities -Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, various tech boom billionaires, and after the maiden voyage next year, the amount of publicity that will generate will ensure that anyone with the cash and inclination is more than aware of it as a status symbol.

As for the price per seat- only time will tell. But both the Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos projects have stated the intention to bring it to the masses ASAP. I think the XCOR project is a one-passenger affair, for about $75k, from memory, which is down to the price of an extravagant sports car. They start flying in 2014. For Branson, it's as much an ego thing as any venture, and he wants to see us all visiting Mars before he dies. He's fixed firmly on being the man who made spaceflight Green and universal.

As for the first wedding? You get about 6 minutes of weightlessness and there's room for the whole wedding party. I would be shocked if we make it to the end of 2014 without someone snapping up the chance. I've known families to spend more than that on a wedding, and the publicity value for celebrities is high. For me, it's more about when space weddings become popularised. I have to admit that this is not going to be something we see by 2014!

As I see it, 1.6b over the next decade is miniscule to its actual potential so who in the hell came up with that number calculated over the next decade is daft.

I had the same reaction- I was hoping/expecting larger. But the source is a report last month by the Tauri Group, a Washington-based consultancy specialising in space enterprises. Daft, no, but maybe a bit conservative and they don't account for 'viral demand'. $1.6b seems small, but that is just for suborbital- it doesn't include any of the other efforts, which include the current visits to the Space Station, and the various planned voyages to beyond-orbit. Nor the more extravagant Russian plans for a $100k per week space hotel (I found those slightly dubious; if you can put a hotel in orbit, you can build a functioning website without spelling mistakes).

 

[PersonOnForum]

Where did you find out about the 100 resale agents?

You can find them through the company website.

There was a Space Tourism conference in June and I think there are now agents signed up to resell competitor projects too. It's not enough yet for my purposes, but I'm sure there was once a time when only a handful of companies sold plane tickets.

It seems from the general feedback that I probably need to wait a while before they're worth anything substantial.