on line presence of the touristic accommodation industry 18.06.2013

On-line Presence of the Touristic

Accommodation Industryvocabularies, semantic formats, google, interactivity,

widgets, direct bookability and social media presence

in the hotel domainChristoph 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.

Overview

1. Selection criteria

2. Evaluation criteria

3. Technologies

4. Analysis

5. Summary

1. SELECTION CRITERIA

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?"

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”

2. EVALUATION CRITERIA

Evaluation Criteria

Does the website use...

1. Semantic vocabularies? (Which ones?)

2. Semantic formats? (RDFa / microdata)

3. Rich snippets?

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)

3. TECHNOLOGIES

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

3.1 VOCABULARIES

Vocabularies

... and a lot more

Vocabularies

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.

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

Schema.org

<span itemprop="name">Name of Hotel</span>

<span itemprop="ratingValue">4</span> stars -

based on <span itemprop="reviewCount">321</span> reviews

</div>

<span itemprop="streetAddress">123 Fake Street</span>

<span itemprop="addressLocality">Seattle </span>,

<span itemprop="addressRegion">Washington </span>

</div>

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.

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

http://purl.org/goodrelations

Lightweight

Web of Data

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

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.

– ….

http://ogp.me/

Booking.com example:

• 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

A SIOC document, unlike a traditional Web page, can be combined

with other SIOC and RDF documents to create a unified database of

information.

• 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.

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.jpg"/> <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>

3.2 FORMATS

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/

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.

Example: Microdata in use

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>

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

<strong class="fn">Bob Smith</strong>

<span class="title">Senior editor</span> at <span class="org">

ACME Reviews</span><span class="adr">

<span class="locality">Desertville</span>, <span class="region">AZ</span>

</span></div>

<strong>Bob Smith</strong>

Senior editor at ACME Reviews

200 Main St

Desertville, AZ 12345

</div>

Enriched with microformat:

• 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)

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>.

Example: RDFa in use

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>

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

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.

3.3 GOOGLE’S RICH SNIPPETS

• 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

3.4 GOOGLE’S SITELINKS

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

• 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

• 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

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

Direct bookability

• Direct booking widget integrated in the Hotel website

3.8 SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

• 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).

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.

* http://investor.fb.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=761090

Facebook

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

Twitter

• 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

• Users can share using the share box on any Google site or +1

buttons across the web.

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

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.

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

1. Hotels

2. Destinations

3. Hotel Chains

4. Booking Channels

Analysis Overview

4.1 HOTELS

• 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

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

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

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

Direct bookability POOR When bookig one gets redirected to another domain https://www.homepage.myfidelio.net/. The booking service is powered by http://www.myfidelio.net/

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

Direct bookability YES The booking service is powered by http://www.hotelnetsolutions.de/

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/

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.

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

Social media presence NO

Gasthof Innbrücke (2*)

Gasthof Ölberg (2*)

Rich snippets NO

Widgets NO Just a facebook like button

Direct bookability POOR When bookig one gets redirected to another domain https://reservation.hotel-spider.com/The booking service is powered by http://www.hotel-spider.com

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.

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

Hoarachhof (no star rating)

4.2 HOTEL CHAINS

• 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

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

Social media presence YES Social presence (facebook, twitter, pinterest, youtube, etc.)

Ramada Hotels (4*)

(Mis-)uses schema.org/Place in one line

</div>

Ramada Hotels (4*)

Widgets:

• TripAdvisor (Ratings)

• Social Media Sharing

Ramada Hotels (4*)

4.3 DESTINATIONS

• Oetztalhttp://www.oetztal.at

• Pitztalhttp://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

Direct bookability YES The booking service is powered by https://www.seekda.com

Social media presence YES Active on social accounts (facebook, youtube, twitter, etc.)

Oetztal.at

Uses OpenGraphProtocol (by Facebook)

content="http://www.oetztal.at" />

Ötztal/Tirol" />

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

Social media presence YES Active on social accounts (facebook, youtube, twitter, etc.)

Pitztal.com

4.4 BOOKING CHANNELS

• 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

Social media presence YES Active on social accounts (facebook, twitter, youtube, google)

Publishing channel specific content

Expedia

Semantic vocabulary YES Uses Schema.org/Product

Rich snippets YES

Widgets 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.

....</script>

</div>

Expedia

Hotels.com

Semantic vocabulary YES Uses Schema.org/Product

Rich snippets YES

Widgets YES

• Have separate facebook pages for UK and USA (only)

• Facebook app

Hotels.com

Hotels.com

Trivago

Semantic vocabulary YES Uses Schema.org/Productand OpenGraphProtocol (by Facebook)

Rich snippets YES

Widgets YES

• 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)

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

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).

Social media presence YES

Google Places

Uses Schema.org/Thing

<htmllang="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

Social media presence YES Facebook, Twitter, Google+

Booking.com

<htmllang="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

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

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

sti innsbruck

online presence

hotel chainsfocus

hotel example

hotel domainchristoph

big hotel chainsif

augmented search results

display of search results

Presentations & Public Speaking

touristic site in cuzco

touristic places in turkey

egypt touristic places

rewe touristic group

touristic authenticity, touristic angst, and modern reality

daily trade journal - 18.06.2013

touristic sites

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touristic brochure loreto

touristic sights

touristic places in colombia

touristic port security

touristic brochure of lambayeque

touristic rental

northern ireland touristic recommendations

hotels & resorts management capital, investment & properties...

touristic brochure of puno

touristic brochure of lima

brno- touristic quide

touristic brochure of ica