You may not have heard of Barcelona, Spain based domain investor/developer Amado Martin Benitez before, but don't be surprised if you start seeing the 33-year-old entrepreneur's name everywhere in the near future. In 2012 Benitez managed to acquire one of the world's best Spanish language domain names - Viajes.com ("Travel" in Spanish) for €400,000 ($452,599 at the exchange rate the day this article was published (Feb. 7, 2015) and even more in 2012). After more than two years of painstaking development work, Benitez's company has launched a new site on the premier domain that he is confident will make him a power in the huge travel markets serving Spain and Latin America.

That is a tough nut to crack but this is not Benitez's first rodeo. 16 years of preparation has gone into getting him to the point he is at today and he has had already enjoyed a lot of success along the way. "I started when I was 17 years old, teaching myself something different every day - going from programming in .html, working with servers, web design and, at last, SEO, SEM and online marketing, which is the area that I chose to specialize in and am getting very good results from," Benitez told us.

Amado Martin Benitez
Viajes.com Founder 

"I’ve been able to position websites with terms such as “Free Games”, “Free online games” or “Juegos" (Spanish for games), all thanks to good content strategies. Because of the success of some of my projects, I’ve also been able to invest in good premium domains in recent years, such as Viajes.com. Right now we manage about 7 million unique users each month among all our sites, and hold about 30 employees. 

Benitez started making significant investments in domain names almost ten years ago when the market was turning red hot (2005-2006) and drawing a lot of attention to how valuable a category defining domain name was to a business. "I’ve always been both an investor and a developer, but I would say I’m more a developer than a seller – although I did sell Bodas.com ("Weddings" in Spanish) for €240,000," Benitez said. "I’ve always tried to invest in generic .com domains –one or two words max because they’re easier to remember and never devalue if the term and industry are important. Viajes.com, for example, will never devalue because the online travel business in Spain and Latin America is worth billions of dollars annually."

In closing Benitez noted, "The online travel business is growing globally, and it quite excites me, being a travel lover myself!" It is pretty obvious to us that Benitez is a guy who is going places - and at 33, his story is just beginning.