Describing Package Tours With Schema.org: Too Much Pain, Too Little Gain... If Any

Since I published some of my (mostly positive at that point) thoughts about structured data embedded in web pages in general and schema.org in particular (see Tour Shopping on the Web: the... Bad and the Ugly and Chicken Thighs, SEO, Structured Data... and More), I have been asked many times by quite a few tour industry professionals whether implementing schema.org mark-up on their sites is something they should consider.

If you want a short answer, it's in the title.

Below is a longer, minimally technical, answer. I may focus on the more technical aspects in another post when and if I have the time.

First, let me explain the following:

In order to test the benefits of schema.org markup for a web site of a small independent tour operator, a real web site was created. Real tours with very detailed itineraries and programs were developed.

The site was run without schema.org markup for about two months, i.e. long enough for it to be fully indexed and start showing consistently in search results.

After that, it was marked up with microdata using schema.org vocabulary and run that way for over five months (it takes a long time for Google to discover and "digest" embedded structured data).

Below are some of the results of the test described as "non-technically" as possible.