With the new owner of the WEF show grounds, comes a new name: Wellington International! I’m excited to see how the new owners will expand and modernize the show grounds. I remember my first time at that horse show, in the 80’s. I think there were one or two grass rings and it was located where the Global Dressage Festival shows are currently held. I am wondering what future plans they have in mind.
I’m not loving the name because Wellington International is an airport. I think they need to tack on ‘Equestrian Center’ to the end so it’s Wellington International Equestrian Center.
However I am interested to see what upgrades they do. The biggest complaint I always heard from competitors was that there was no turnout and the stables kind of sucked. Im hoping they upgrade that, but it looks like more they just plan on putting in more vendor, VIP, and meeting space.
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The local airport near Wellington is Palm Beach International so I don’t think there will be confusion.
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Wellington International is the international airport for Wellington, New Zealand. It’s also for my browser the first result when Wellington International is searched.
We all kind of live in a horse bubble where Wellington means Wellington FL, but once I was talking to my family about taking the horses to Wellington and my cousin was very confused as to why we would fly all the way to New Zealand to show our horses.
Well, the Wellington Airport has existed since before there was an internet and Wellington International has existed for about a week. I think anyone searching for the horse show venue will not be confused by the existence of the airport, and vice versa.
My first result is Wellington Management.
Well, my point is more that it’s never a good idea to use a name that will always be bigger and more important than your business. The main international airport for an entire country is always going to be bigger than a horse show. Google is going to prioritize the airport over a horse show venue.
It would be like me opening a company that makes floor mats for horse stalls and calling it Armstrong Flooring. Could I? Yeah. My family name is Armstrong so I’m just using my name. But would that be a smart business practice? No, because every time someone searched for my business they are going to end up with a result for a different business. And even if my business takes off and does really well, I can’t guarantee that it will be the top result when searched, which isn’t ideal. When you searched Winter Equestrian festival the first result was WEF. Will the first result be for Wellington International be the horse show? I guess we will see.
Just racking on ‘Equestrian Center’ to the end of the name solves the whole issue. Seems like a simple answer to me, but I’m not on their PR team 
How many people are searching by the name of the venue to make this a problem in the first place? I’d bet real money that people are just searching WEF and moving on.
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