On line presence of the touristic accommodation industry 18.06.2013

www.sti-innsbruck.at© Copyright 2008 STI INNSBRUCK www.sti-innsbruck.at
On-line Presence of the Touristic
Accommodation Industry
vocabularies, semantic formats, google, interactivity,
widgets, direct bookability and social media presence
in the hotel domain
Christoph Fuchs, Corneliu-Valentin Stanciu, Ioan Toma, Dieter Fensel, Andreea Gagiu,
Anna Fensel, Birgit Leiter and Andreas Thalhammer

www.sti-innsbruck.at
Overview
An empirical analysis of uptake concerning
state-of-the-art on-line technolgies to enable
presence of touristic service providers.
2

Overview
1. Selection criteria
2. Evaluation criteria
3. Technologies
4. Analysis
5. Summary
3

1. SELECTION CRITERIA
4

Selection Criteria
• Hotels
– Austrian (Tirolean) Hotels
– Ranging from two stars (**) to five stars (*****)
– Online presence required
• Hotel chains
– Focus on big hotel chains
– “If they don't adopt it, who would?"
5

Selection Criteria
• Destinations
– Austrian (Tirolean) destination sites
– Online presence required
• Booking Channels
– Major booking channels (for the same reason)
– Google Page Rank searched for “hotel booking sites”
6

2. EVALUATION CRITERIA
7

Evaluation Criteria
Does the website use...
1. Semantic vocabularies? (Which ones?)
2. Semantic formats? (RDFa / microdata)
3. Rich snippets?
8

Evaluation Criteria
4. Does the site support Google's Sitelinks?
5. Does the web site support interactivity and
engagement?
6. Does the site have widgets of some kind?
7. Does the site include support for direct bookability?
8. Does the hotel, hotel chain, etc. have a social media
presence?
9. (In the next version: Mobile platforms)
9

3. TECHNOLOGIES
10

Technologies overview
1. Vocabularies
– Schema.org
– GoodRelations
– Facebook’s OpenGraphProtocol
– Others: SIOC, FOAF
2. Formats
– Microdata
– Microformats
– RDFa
3. Google’s Rich Snippets
4. Google’s Sitelinks
5. Interactivity
6. Widgets
7. Direct bookabilty
8. Social media presence
11

3.1 VOCABULARIES
12

Vocabularies
13
... and a lot more

Vocabularies
14

Schema.org
• A microdata vocabulary.
• Schema.org is a collection of schemas, i.e., html tags, that
webmasters can use to markup their pages in ways recognized by
major search providers.
• Search engines including Bing, Google, Yahoo! and Yandex rely
on this markup to improve the display of search results, making it
easier for people to find the right web pages.
15

Schema.org
• In-page structured data for search
• Do not ask “so, how do we describe hotels?”, but “how can we
improve markup on existing pages that describe hotels?” (or Cars,
Software, ...)
• Simplify publisher/webmaster experience
• Record agreements between search engines
• Central use case: augmented search results
16

Schema.org
17
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Hotel">
<span itemprop="name">Name of Hotel</span>
<div itemprop="aggregateRating" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/AggregateRating">
<span itemprop="ratingValue">4</span> stars -
based on <span itemprop="reviewCount">321</span> reviews
</div>
<div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
<span itemprop="streetAddress">123 Fake Street</span>
<span itemprop="addressLocality">Seattle </span>,
<span itemprop="addressRegion">Washington </span>
<span itemprop="postalCode">98146 </span>
</div>
<span itemprop="telephone">(206) 123-4321</span>
<a href="http://mapsurl.com/23452345" itemprop="maps">URL of Map</a>
Price Range: <span itemprop="priceRange">$$</span>
</div>
Hotel example:
Overview: http://schema.org/Hotel

GoodRelations
• GoodRelations is a standardized vocabulary (also known as
"schema", "data dictionary", or "ontology") for product, price, store,
and company data that can be:
1. Embedded into existing static and dynamic Web pages
2. Processed by other computers. This increases the visibility of
your products and services in the latest generation of search
engines, recommender systems, and other novel applications.
18

GoodRelations Design Principles
“Keep simple things simple and
make complex things possible”
• Cater for LOD and OWL DL worlds
• Academically sound
• Industry-strength engineering
• Practically relevant
19
http://purl.org/goodrelations
Lightweight
Web of Data
LOD
RDF + a little bit
Heavyweight
Web of Data
OWL DL

Facebook’s OpenGraphProtocol
• Open Graph protocol enables any web page to become a rich
object in a social graph.
• Four required properties for every page are:
– og:title - the title of your object as it should appear within the graph
– og:type - the type of your object
– og:image - an image URL which should represent your object within the graph.
– og:url - the canonical URL of your object that will be used as its permanent ID in
the graph
20
http://ogp.me/

• As optional properties one can use:
– og:description - description of the object.
– og:locale - The locale these tags are marked up in. Of the format
language_TERRITORY. Default is en_US.
– og:locale:alternate - An array of other locales in which this page is available.
– og:site_name - If your object is part of a larger web site, this is the name which
should be displayed for the overall site.
– ….
21
http://ogp.me/

22
<meta property="og:type" content="booking_com:hotel" />
<meta property="og:title" content="★★★
Hotel Kapeller Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria" />
<meta property="og:description" content="A 10-minute tram
ride from Innsbruck’s Old Town, Hotel Kapeller offers
modern rooms furnished in pastel colours." />
<meta property="og:url"
content="http://www.booking.com/hotel/at/kapeller.en.html"
/>
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Booking.com" />
Booking.com example:

SIOC
23
• Vocabulary to describe content in social channels
• Enables...
– semantic links between online communities
– the ability to fully describe the content and structure of community sites
– the integration of online community information
– browsing of connected Semantic Web items
– the ability to add a social aspect to the Semantic Web

SIOC
24
A SIOC document, unlike a traditional Web page, can be combined
with other SIOC and RDF documents to create a unified database of
information.

FOAF
• Vocabulary to link people and information using the Web.
• Enables...
– the ability to describe Agents, Documents, Groups, Organizations, Projects and
their relationships.
– a distributed social network that can be crawled.
25

FOAF Schema
[http://www.foaf-project.org/]
26

FOAF RDF Example
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/">
<foaf:Person rdf:ID=“DieterFensel">
<foaf:name>Dieter Fensel</foaf:name>
<foaf:title>Univ.-Prof. Dr.</foaf:title>
<foaf:givenname>Dieter</foaf:givenname>
<foaf:family_name>Fensel</foaf:family_name>
<foaf:mbox_sha1sum>773a221a09f1887a24853c9de06c3480e714278a
</foaf:mbox_sha1sum>
<foaf:homepage rdf:resource="http://www.fensel.com "/>
<foaf:depiction
rdf:resource="http://www.deri.at/fileadmin/images/photos/dieter_fensel.jp
g"/> <foaf:phone rdf:resource="tel:+43-512-507-6488"/>
<foaf:workplaceHomepage rdf:resource="http://www.sti-
innsbruck.at"/> <foaf:workInfoHomepage
rdf:resource="http://www.sti-
innsbruck.at/about/team/details/?uid=40"/> </foaf:Person>
</rdf:RDF>
27

3.2 FORMATS
28

Microdata
• Search engines, web crawlers, and browsers can extract and
process Microdata from a web page and use it to provide a richer
browsing experience for users.
• Microdata uses a supporting vocabulary to describe an item and
name-value pairs to assign values to its properties
• Microdata helps technologies such as search engines and web
crawlers better understand what information is contained in a web
page, providing better search results.
Two important vocabularies:
http://www.data-vocabulary.org/
http://schema.org/
29

Microdata
Microdata Global Attributes
itemscope – Creates the Item and indicates that descendants of this element contain
information about it.
itemtype – A valid URL of a vocabulary that describes the item and its properties context.
itemid – Indicates a unique identifier of the item.
itemprop – Indicates that its containing tag holds the value of the specified item property.
The properties name and value context are described by the item’s vocabulary.
Properties values usually consist of string values, but can also use URLs using the a
element and its href attribute, the img element and its src attribute, or other elements
that link to or embed external resources.
itemref – Properties that are not descendants of the element with the itemscope attribute
can be associated with the item using this attribute. Provides a list of element itemids
with additional properties elsewhere in the document.
30

Example: Microdata in use
31
<div itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Person">
My name is <span itemprop="name">Bob Smith</span>
but people call me <span itemprop="nickname">Smithy</span>.
Here is my home page:
<a href="http://www.example.com" itemprop="url">www.example.com</a>
I live in Albuquerque, NM and work as an <span itemprop="title">engineer</span>
at <span itemprop="affiliation">ACME Corp</span>.
</div>
<div>
My name is Bob Smith but people call me Smithy. Here is my home page:
<a href="http://www.example.com">www.example.com</a>
I live in Albuquerque, NM and work as an engineer at ACME Corp.
</div>
Enriched with microdata:
Source: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=176035

www.sti-innsbruck.at 32
What are Microformats?
• An approach to add meaning to HTML elements and to make data
structures in HTML pages explicit.
• “Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are
a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely
adopted standards. Instead of throwing away what works today,
microformats intend to solve simpler problems first by adapting to
current behaviours and usage patterns (e.g. XHTML, blogging).” [6]

What are Microformats? (2)
• Are highly correlated with semantic (X)HTML / “Real world semantics” / “Lowercase
Semantic Web”.
• Real world semantics (or the Lowercase Semantic Web) are based on three notions:
– Addition of simple semantics to microformats (small pieces)
– Addition of semantics to today’s Web instead of creating a new one (evolutionary not revolutionary)
– Design for humans first and machines second (user centric design)
• A way to combine human with machine-readable information.
• Provide means to embed structured data in HTML pages.
• Build upon existing standards.
• Solve a single, specific problem (e.g. representation of geographical information,
calendaring information, etc.).
• Provide an “API” for your website.
• Build on existing (X)HTML and reuse existing elements.
• Work in current browsers.
• Follow the DRY principle (“Don’t Repeat Yourself”).
• Compatible with the idea of the Web as a single information space.

Microformats Illustrated

Examle: Microformat in use
35
<div class="vcard“><img class="photo" src="www.example.com/bobsmith.jpg" />
<strong class="fn">Bob Smith</strong>
<span class="title">Senior editor</span> at <span class="org">
ACME Reviews</span><span class="adr">
<span class="street-address">200 Main St</span>
<span class="locality">Desertville</span>, <span class="region">AZ</span>
<span class="postal-code">12345</span>
</span></div>
<div>
<img src="www.example.com/bobsmith.jpg" />
<strong>Bob Smith</strong>
Senior editor at ACME Reviews
200 Main St
Desertville, AZ 12345
</div>
Enriched with microformat:

RDFa
• RDFa is a W3C recommendation.
• RDFa is a serialization syntax for embedding an RDF graph into XHTML.
• Goals: Bringing the Web of Documents and the Web of Data closer
together.
• Overcomes some of the drawbacks of microformats
• Both for human and machine consumption.
• Follows the DRY (“Don’t Repeat Yourself”) – principles.
• RDFa is domain-independent. In contrast to the domain-dedicated
microformats, RDFa can be used for custom data and multiple schemas.
• Benefits inherited from RDF: Independence, modularity, evolvability, and
reusability.
• Easy to transform RDFa into RDF data.
• Tools for RDFa publishing and consumption exist.

Syntax: How to use RDFa in XHTML
• Relevant XHTML attributes: @rel, @rev, @content, @href, and
@src (examples and explanations on the following slides)
• New RDFa-specific attributes: @about, @property, @resource,
@datatype, and @typeof (examples and explanations on the
following slides)
37

Syntax: How to use RDFa in XHTML
• @rel: a whitespace separated list of CURIEs (Compact URIs), used
for expressing relationships between two resources ('predicates’);
• All content on this site is licensed under <a rel="license"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"> a Creative
Commons License </a>.
38

Example: RDFa in use
39
39
<div xmlns:v="http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/#" typeof="v:Person">
My name is <span property="v:name">Bob Smith</span>,
but people call me <span property="v:nickname">Smithy</span>.
Here is my homepage:
<a href="http://www.example.com" rel="v:url">www.example.com</a>.
I live in Albuquerque, NM and work as an <span property="v:title">engineer</span>
at <span property="v:affiliation">ACME Corp</span>.
</div>
<div>
My name is Bob Smith but people call me Smithy. Here is my home page:
<a href="http://www.example.com">www.example.com</a>.
I live in Albuquerque, NM and work as an engineer at ACME Corp.
</div>
Enriched with RDFa:

Microformats, RDFa, Microformat
• Microformats  you like class attributes, don’t you?
• RDFa  HTML is not your triplestore
• Microdata  fixed vocabularies
40

Microformats, RDFa, Microformat
• All three of them are intended for machines to interpret content, i.e.
search engines
• Major search engines support Microformat in combination with the
Schema.org vocabulary.
• If your choice is not supported by Google, Bing, and Yahoo your
choice is useless.

41

3.3 GOOGLE’S RICH SNIPPETS
42

• Snippets are a few lines of text that appear under a site link in
search result summarizing what the site is about. Typically includes:
a title in blue, a URL in green, a description
• Rich Snippets are all the visual extras that show up such as average
review, price range, images, video, events, etc.
Google‘s Rich Snippets

• Rich Snippets are markup tags that webmasters can put in their
sites in order to tell Google what type of content they have on their
site so that Google can better display it in search results.
• Three steps to Rich Snippets:
1. Pick up a markup format (e.g. Microdata, Microformats, RDFa)
2. Markup the content (content types supported by Google: reviews, people,
products, business and organizations, receipts, events, music)
3. Test the markup (http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets)
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99170

45

3.4 GOOGLE’S SITELINKS
46

Sitelinks
The links shown below some of Google's
search results, called sitelinks, are meant
to help users navigate your site. Our
systems analyze the link structure of your
site to find shortcuts that will save users
time and allow them to quickly find the
information they're looking for.
• direct navigation to sub-pages
• created automatically by Google if the HTML is "kinda well-formed"
Google‘s Sitelinks

• an inappropriate or incorrect URL can demote it by the site owner
• min 3, max 8 sitelinks per site
Google‘s Sitelinks

3.5 INTERACTIVITY
49

• An interactive web page is a web page that allows it's visitors to
communicate with it
• Usual forms of interactivity aspects on the Web include:
– Polls and quizzes
– Blogs, feedback buttons
– Pop-up windows
– Sliders, date pickers, drag and dropping
– Dynamic menu systems
– Interactive media
– Portal customization
– …
Interactivity

• Interactivity can be achieved using technologies such as HTML5,
CSS3, JavaScript libraries such as jQuery, Adobe Flash or Microsoft
Silverlight.
Interactivity

3.6 WIDGETS
52

• Small applications with limited functionality that can be installed and
executed within a web page by an end user
• Occupy a portion of a webpage and does something useful with
information taken from other websites and displayed in place.
• Are typically created in DHTML, JavaScript, or Adobe Flash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_widget
Widgets

• Architecture of a simple widget can be divided in the following parts:
– Data: the data of the widget, coming from.js file
– HTML: the page which hosts the widget and passes the parameter to the Widget
– JavaScript: the main functionality of parsing and displaying data
– Images and Style: presentation of the Widget
Widgets

http://widgets-gadgets.com/
Widgets

3.7 DIRECT BOOKABILITY
56

Direct bookability
• Booking quickly and directly via hotel Web sites
• Benfits:
– Hotels do not give a part of their income to booking chanells
– Guests spend less time booking
– Guest may not search through listings of other hotels
57

Direct bookability
58
• Direct booking widget integrated in the Hotel website

3.8 SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
59

• Refers to the means of interactions between people in which they create, share, and
exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks.
• Includes collaborative projects (e.g. Wikipedia), blogs and microblogs (e.g. Twitter),
content communities (e.g. YouTube), social networking sites (e.g. example,
Facebook), virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft), virtual social worlds (e.g.
Second Life).
60
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci
al_media
http://freshtightdesigns.com/services/social-
media-marketing/
Social media

• Facebook is a social networking service and website;
• Launched in February 2004
• It is owned and operated by Facebook, Inc.
• Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.11 billion as of March 31, 2013*
• Mobile MAUs were 751 million as of March 31, 2013*
• Users must register before using the services.
• Users can create a personal profile, add friends, exchange messages, chat (the
company has also launched a separate instant messaging service), receive automatic
notifications, take part in games, etc.
61
* http://investor.fb.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=761090
Facebook

Facebook
62

Twitter
• Launched in 2006
• It is owned and operated by Twitter Inc.
• Online social networking service and microblogging service that
enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to
140 characters known as "tweets".
• Over 500 million registered users as of 2012, generating over 340
million tweets daily and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per
day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
63

Twitter
64

• Launched in 2011
• Social networking and identity service owned and operated by
Google Inc
• Integrates social services such as Google Profiles
• Introduces new services such as Circles, Hangouts and Sparks
• Share photos, videos, links, or anything else that’s on your
mind.
• Users can share using the share box on any Google site or +1
buttons across the web.
65
Google+

Google+

• Founded in December 2002
• LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network
• It has over 200 million members*
• LinkedIn connects users to their trusted contacts
• Helps users exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a
broader network of professionals.
• It allows users to search, keep in touch and extend their networks of
professionals
67
LinkedIn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn

• Social and business networking tool for professionals with over 8
million users;
• Initially established as Open business Club AG in August 2003 in
Germany; name was changed to Xing in November 2006
• Main competitor is LinkedIn
• Seems to attract more small business and independent business
owners than its competitors
• Basic membership is free
• The platform uses https and has a rigid privacy and no-spam policy.
Xing

Social media market share
Market share for June 2013 (according to
karmasnack.com):
http://www.karmasnack.com/about/social-media-market-share/
71

4. ANALYSIS
72

1. Hotels
2. Destinations
3. Hotel Chains
4. Booking Channels
Analysis Overview

4.1 HOTELS
74

• Grand Hotel Europa - http://www.grandhoteleuropa.at (5*)
• Interalpen Hotel - http://www.interalpen.com (5*)
• Hotel Maximilian - http://www.hotel-maximilian.com (4*)
• Hotel Central - http://www.central.co.at (4*)
• Hotel Schwarzer Adler - http://www.deradler.com (4*)
• Hotel Altpradl - http://www.hotel-altpradl.at (3*)
• Sporthotel Schieferle - http://www.sporthotel-schieferle.at (3*)
• Gasthof Innbrücke - http://www.garni-technikerhaus.at (2*)
• Gasthof Ölberg - http://www.oelberg.eu (2*)
• Nockhof - http://www.nockhof-tirol.com/en
• Hoarachhof - http://www.hoarachhof.at
Hotels (10)

Grand Hotel Europa (5*)

Criteria YES/NO/POOR Comments
Semantic vocabulary NO
Rich snippets NO
Goole site links NO
Widgets NO
Direct bookability POOR When bookig one gets redirected to another
domain https://www.yourreservation.net/. The
new page preserves the style of the (initial)
hotel page. The booking service is powered by
http://trustinternational.com/
Interaction with the
Web site
POOR
Social media presence POOR Poor presence; Has a poor Facebook profile
with no activity.
Grand Hotel Europa (5*)

Interalpen Hotel (5*)

Rich snippets NO
Goole site links YES
Widgets YES
Direct bookability YES The booking service is powered by
https://www.seekda.com
Web site
YES
Social media presence YES Online presence on social channels;
Daily posts
Interalpen Hotel (5*)

Hotel Maximilian (4*)

Rich snippets NO
Goole site links NO
Widgets NO
Direct bookability NO Option to book rooms from the hotel site but
actually a new browser window pops up
showing www.booking.com
Web site
YES Site done by P&P Medien
Social media presence POOR Poor presence; Just Facebook, but
almost empty.
Hotel Maximilian (4*)

Hotel Central (4*)

Rich snippets NO
Widgets NO
domain https://www.homepage.myfidelio.net/.
The booking service is powered by
http://www.myfidelio.net/
Web site
POOR
Social media presence POOR Poor presence; Just Facebook, but
almost empty.
Hotel Central (4*)

Hotel Schwarzer Adler (4*)

Rich snippets NO
Widgets YES Social media
http://www.hotelnetsolutions.de/
Web site
YES
Social media presence YES Online presence on Facebook
Hotel Schwarzer Adler (4*)

Hotel Altpradl (3*)

Rich snippets NO
Widgets YES Google Maps widget for the location
Direct bookability NO No direct booking. Option to book using
www.booking.com and http://www.hrs.com/
Web site
POOR
Social media presence POOR Poor social presence; Just Facebook
profile, but beside address is empty
Hotel Altpradl (3*)

Sporthotel Schieferle (3*)

Rich snippets NO
Goole site links NO
Widgets YES Includes and displays widgets from:
HolidayCheck.de and Facebook hotel
page
Direct bookability NO No direct booking. Just the possibility to make
inquires.
Web site
POOR
Social media presence YES Facebook hotel page

• Could switch easily to e.g. Schema.org microdata:
<p class="adresse">
Sporthotel Schieferle ***<br />
Nockhofweg 28 <br />
A6162 Mutters / Tirol <br />
Tel: 0043 512 54 85 35<br />
...
------------------------------
<section itemprop="adress" itemscope
itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
<span itemprop="addressLocality">Sporthotel
Schieferle</span>,
<span itemprop="streetAddress">Nockhofweg 28 </span>,
<span itemprop="...

Gasthof Innbrücke (2*)

Rich snippets NO
Goole site links NO
Widgets NO
Direct bookability NO
Web site
POOR
Social media presence NO
Gasthof Innbrücke (2*)

Gasthof Ölberg (2*)

Rich snippets NO
Widgets NO Just a facebook like button
domain https://reservation.hotel-spider.com/
The booking service is powered by
http://www.hotel-spider.com
Web site
POOR
Gasthof Ölberg (2*)

Nockhof (no star rating)

Rich snippets NO
Goole site links NO
Widgets NO
Direct bookability NO No direct booking. Just the possibility to check
availability of rooms.
Web site
POOR
Nockhof (no star rating)

Hoarachhof (no star rating)

Rich snippets NO
Goole site links NO
Widgets NO Only a link to a facebook profile person
named "Hoarachhof Larcher-Haller"
Direct bookability NO
Web site
POOR
Hoarachhof (no star rating)

4.2 HOTEL CHAINS
99

• Hilton Hotels - (4*)
http://www3.hilton.com
• Ramada Hotels - (4*)
http://www.ramada.com/
Hotel Chains (2)

Hilton Hotels (4*)

Rich snippets NO
Goole site links NO
Widgets NO
Direct bookability YES
Web site
YES
Social media presence YES Social presence (facebook, twitter,
pinterest, youtube)
Hilton Hotels (4*)

Ramada Hotels (4*)

Semantic vocabulary YES (Mis-)uses schema.org/Place
Rich snippets NO
Widgets YES TripAdvisor (Ratings) and Social
Media Sharing
Web site
YES
Social media presence YES Social presence (facebook, twitter,
pinterest, youtube, etc.)
Ramada Hotels (4*)

(Mis-)uses schema.org/Place in one line
<div itemtype="http://schema.org/Place"
itemscope="itemscope" ... >
...
<img itemprop="logo" ...
src="/common/images/content/print-logo.png"
alt="Ramada Hotels" />
</div>
Ramada Hotels (4*)

Widgets:
• TripAdvisor (Ratings)
• Social Media Sharing
Ramada Hotels (4*)

4.3 DESTINATIONS
107

• Oetztal
http://www.oetztal.at
• Pitztal
http://www.pitztal.com/
Destinations

Oetztal.at

Semantic vocabulary YES Uses OpenGraphProtocol (by
Facebook)
Rich snippets NO
Goole site links NO
Widgets YES Social Media Sharing
https://www.seekda.com
Web site
YES
Social media presence YES Active on social accounts (facebook,
youtube, twitter, etc.)
Oetztal.at

Uses OpenGraphProtocol (by Facebook)
<meta property="fb:page_id" content="oetztal" /> <meta property="og:url"
content="http://www.oetztal.at" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta property="fb:admins" content="1200768984" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Die schönsten Seiten für Ihren Urlaub im
Ötztal/Tirol" />
<meta property="og:locality" content="Ötztal" />
<meta property="og:region" content="Tirol" />
<meta property="og:country-name" content="Austria" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Das Ötztal: Abwechslung,
Superlative... unser Traum Tal in Tirol"/>
Oetztal.at

Pitztal.com

Rich snippets NO
Goole site links NO
Widgets NO
Direct bookability YES The booking service is powered by toubiz.de
Web site
YES
youtube, twitter, etc.)
Pitztal.com

4.4 BOOKING CHANNELS
114

• HRS - http://www.hrs.com/
• Expedia - http://www.expedia.at
• Hotels.com - http://de.hotels.com/
• Trivago - http://www.trivago.com
• Google Hotel Finder - http://google.com/hotelfinder/
• Booking.com - http://www.booking.com
Booking Channels (6)

Rich snippets YES
Widgets YES
Web site
YES
twitter, youtube, google)
Publishing channel specific content
HRS

Expedia

Semantic vocabulary YES Uses Schema.org/Product
Rich snippets YES
Widgets YES
Web site
YES
Social media presence YES • Active on social accounts
(facebook, twitter, youtube,
google)
• Publishing channel specific
content
• Facebook app
Expedia

Uses Schema.org/Product
Defines the "fb" namespace, but not using it.
<div
itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Product"
id="xp-hdr">
<script type="text/javascript">
....
</script>
</div>
Expedia

Hotels.com

Rich snippets YES
Widgets YES
Web site
YES
google)
• Have separate facebook pages
for UK and USA (only)
• Facebook app
Hotels.com

Trivago

and OpenGraphProtocol (by
Facebook)
Rich snippets YES
Widgets YES
Web site
YES
google)
• Have separate facebook pages
for UK and USA (only)
• Facebook app
Trivago

Uses both, Schema.org/PostalAddress
... and ...
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
<strong itemprop="name">trivago US</strong>,
<span itemprop="streetAddress">140 Broadway 46th</span>,
<span itemprop="addressLocality">New York NY</span>
<span itemprop="postalCode">10005</span>,
<span itemprop="addressCountry">United States</span><br />
</div>
Trivago

... OpenGraphProtocol (by Facebook)
<meta property="fb:page_id" content="137633439645541"/>
<meta property="og:title" content="trivago.com - The #1 Hotel
Price Comparison, Find cheap hotels" />
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.trivago.com" />
<meta property="og:image"
content="http://ie2.es/logos/default.png" />
<meta property="og:description" content="trivago.com - The best
hotel at the best rate. Read reviews, compare prices and find
hotel deals." />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="trivago" />
<meta name="description" content="trivago.com - ...">
Trivago

Google Hotel Finder

Rich snippets NO
Widgets NO
Direct bookability NO Option to book using booking channels (e.g.
hotels.com, expedia.com, hrs.com, etc.) or on
the hotel website
Web site
YES
Social media presence YES
Google Hotel Finder

Crazy AJAX application
• not indexed
• not really used to describe hotels
• uses well-described data from Google Places
Google Hotel Finder

Semantic vocabulary YES Uses Schema.org/Thing
Rich snippets YES
Widgets YES
Direct bookability NO Option to book using booking channels (e.g.
hotels.com, expedia.com, hrs.com, etc.) or on
the hotel website (if available).
Web site
YES
Social media presence YES
Google Places

Uses Schema.org/Thing
<html
lang="en-gb"
prefix="
og: http://ogp.me/ns#
fb: http://ogp.me/ns/fb#
booking_com: http://ogp.me/ns/fb/booking_com#"
xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/"
... >
Google Places

Booking.com

Semantic vocabulary YES Uses OpenGraphProtocol (by
Facebook), twitter cards and internal
booking.com schema
Rich snippets YES
Widgets YES
Web site
YES
Social media presence YES Facebook, Twitter, Google+
Booking.com

<html
lang="en-gb"
prefix="
og: http://ogp.me/ns#
fb: http://ogp.me/ns/fb#
booking_com: http://ogp.me/ns/fb/booking_com#"
xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/"
... >
Booking.com

No standard by any means.
No real schema definition.
Some values have OpenGraph fallbacks.
@see https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/markup-reference
Note to twitter:cards

5. SUMMARY - EVALUATION
139

Hotels

• Ramada uses Schema.org
o http://schema.org/Place
• Hilton Hotels don't use semantics
Hotel Chains

• Otztal uses OpenGraphProtocol (by Facebook)
• Pitztal dosen't use semantics
Destinations

Booking Channels

• 4 out of 5 use semantic vocabularies
o Exception: Google Hotel Finder (more an AJAX application)
(Google has semantic data in Google Places)(and don't forget
their knowledge graph)
• facebook's OpenGraphProtocol is used
• schema.org is used
Booking Channels

• Originally it was expected that the internet may enable direct
interaction with the customer excluding intermediares.
• This did not really happen. Why not?
• Observing the usage pattern of web technology, this may be easily
explained by the fact that:
− Intermediares use this technology nearly perfectly
− In contrast, most touristic service providers nearly fail completely on them:
− Either not using them at all
− Or using them only minimally and mostly inappropriately
• Since many of these featuers are not really costly, there seems to
be a severe competence gap
– Either directly in the touristic service industry OR
– In the industry providing them with their on-line presence.
Conclusion

On line presence of the touristic accommodation industry 18.06.2013

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Editor's Notes