September 7 2022 Update: I originally published this post on May 9th, 2020, as a response to emails and questions I was getting following a 2018 post looking at schema markup for Hotels – now we’re in September 2022 and I feel it’s time for a refresh given how much Google, and the travel space, has changed in the past 4 years, and I felt this article but become a lot more thorough.
The inclusion of schema/structured data markup on travel websites can help Google better understand and process the information on the page, allowing it to be used in more creative ways – such as rich results and special content result blocks.
Simplified – This is because you’re structuring key points of the data in the form of a summarized table, making it easier to automate understanding and comparisons with the same data across other websites. This coupled with the perceived user value of the content on the page (and then around a few hundred other factors) results in ranking.
It is worth noting at this point that schema is not a ranking factor, and does not directly help improve your rankings.
Types of travel businesses that can benefit from Schema implementations:
- Hotels
- Lodgings
- Airlines
- Tour Operators
- Travel-related products, e.g. Insurance
- Luggage
- Transport companies, e.g. airport transfer & taxis
- Group holidays/guided holidays
It’s relatively straightforward to create a structured data markup/Schema code for your website.
Typically Schema markup belongs in the <head> of your website, but there are times when other page elements (in the <body>), along with semantic HTML markup.
Featured Snippets On Travel Queries
In 2020, I ran a study across 98,863 search results looking at a variety of travel sector keywords to determine which Featured Snippets appeared, and how common they were.
You can read this study here.
So why am I mentioning Featured Snippets?
Because Featured Snippets, also known as Rich Snippets, are great pieces of SERP real estate and oftentimes contain information pulled from a web page’s schema markup.
Featured Snippets can be great for brand visibility, and they tend to attract a higher click-through rate from the search results.
Schema Types For Travel Companies
In this article, I’m going to look at different schema types that have been defined for the travel industry and can be used to better mark up your information so that it can be processed by Google (and other search engines).
There are a number of Travel specific schema markups we can use, as well as some generic schema markup types that can be utilized.
Travel Sector Related Schema Markup
Below are schema types relevant for travel companies, and their relevant subtypes. Some subtypes can also be generic, such as offers being nested under trip.
- Trip
- TouristTrip
- Flight
- BusTrip
- TrainTrip
- TouristDestination
- TouristAttractions
- includesAttraction
- LodgingBusiness
- Accommodation
- HotelRoom
A number of the above schema types are collective thought works of the Tourism Structured Web Data Community Group and work to propose and lobby Schema.org for the betterment of the travel and tourism industry.
General Schema Markup For Travel Companies
The below schema types are generally applicable to all businesses, but should also be considered for travel websites.
- Organization
- Product
- Offers
Schema Markup For Hotels & Accommodations
When mapping out hotel-related schema, using approved and pending Schema.org schema, there are three important areas.
Lodging businesses: Hotels, hostels, resorts, campsites, etc. By definition, any business that facilitates accommodations (such as hotel rooms, pitches for camping or motorhomes).This can be a site with multiple physical buildings but is a single location.
Accommodation: This schema type refers to the accommodation units itself, so within a LodgingBusiness, you will have hotel rooms, suites, pitches, apartments… These are the accommodation themselves.
Offer: The offer of occupancy of an accommodation unit within a LodgingBusiness.
When describing a hotel or lodging room and its amenities, Schema.org describes this process as the same as any other product or service:
In schema.org, an offer for a hotel room is using the same patterns as an offer for any other type of product or service, e.g. a TV set or a welding service. However, a hotel room is not a subclass of Product or Service. To enable an offer to be described, use is made of the Multi-Typed Entity (MTE) feature of Schema.org.
When developing your Schema markup plan for your hotel, resort, or lodging, there is a number of Schema types to consider that would be relevant. These include:
- https://schema.org/Hotel
- https://schema.org/HotelRoom
- https://schema.org/QuantitativeValue (if you want to be specific about the number of rooms you have)
- https://schema.org/amenityFeature
- https://schema.org/Suite
- https://schema.org/Accommodation
- https://schema.org/checkoutTime
- https://schema.org/checkinTime
- https://schema.org/CheckInAction
- https://schema.org/CheckOutAction
- https://schema.org/numberOfRooms
- https://schema.org/LodgingReservation
- https://schema.org/Reservation
- https://schema.org/smokingAllowed
- https://schema.org/LocationFeatureSpecification (if you have an onsite sauna, gym, or creche facility)
If you’re a hotel chain, you can also use parentOrganization (useful for chain hotels like Marriot).
Schema For Tour Operators
Tour operators have a number of schema markup options available to them,
Many tours and travel pack operators, even the leading ones, don’t make use of all the schema markup available to them.
For example, a global tour and travel package broker advertises this on one of their pages:
But then the Product schema only targets the price and review elements.
This page should also be making use of Trip.
For example:
- {
- “@context”: “https://schema.org”,
- “@type”: “Trip”,
- “name”: “Britain Quick Trip”,
- “description”: “Draw a triangle travelling across three great cities in England and Scotland, rich in culture.”,
- “itinerary”: [
- {
- “@type”: “City”,
- “name”: “London”,
- “description”: “While it’s not impossible to plan a trip to England without visiting London, it’s certainly not to be advised, as the nation’s sprawling capital boasts plenty of attractions to keep you busy”,
- “url”: “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London”
- },
- {
- “@type”: “City”,
- “name”: “Edinburgh”,
- “description”: “One of Scotland’s most attractive cities, the capital city of Edinburgh is also one of England’s most visited destinations.”,
- “url”: “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh”
- },
- {
- “@type”: “City”,
- “name”: “Bath”,
- “description”: “Although one of England’s smaller cities, Bath more than makes up for its diminutive size with a multitude of things to see and do.”,
- “url”: “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath,_Somerset”
- }
- ]
- }
This can be combined with other Schema types mentioned in this post, but this enhancement – when you have a static itinerary, is a no brainer.
Schema For Travel Agents & Brokers
Travel Agencies and brokers can make use of the TravelAgency schema, nested under LocalBusiness, as either an Organization or a Place.
- Thing > Organization > LocalBusiness > TravelAgency
- Thing > Place > LocalBusiness > TravelAgency
This schema is a relatively standard schema type, and contains a lot of properties inherited from LocalBusiness, Place, Thing, and Organization.
When it comes to your product offering. A lot of websites just use Product schema as a way to also include reviews, in the hope of getting the review rich snippets. In most instances, Product would be the right call here.
If you’re selling tours with specific dates, e.g. 13 days across Italy starting March 13, you can also use TravelAction, and Trip.
- https://schema.org/TravelAction
- https://schema.org/Trip
This will allow you to list out itineraries, as well as distance, start, and end dates.