When I start gnome-terminal and do echo $TERM, I got xterm as output.

I want it to be xterm-256color

I've considered the solution to add 'export TERM=xterm256color' in my .bashrc. But I don't like this solution, what if I decide to switch shell? I have to add an other export to my new shell startup script?

So is there a better way to have automatically a 256 colors terminal when launching gnome-terminal?