Update – new standardization initiatives

Dear All,

I apologize upfront for not giving news sooner. I will try to update you on the matters I’m working on related to standardization which could interest you, and open again the discussions for improving schema.org on tourism.

As a reminder, in 2016-2017 we made two new proposals, accepted, to include new terms and properties in the vocabulary. Then, in 2018-2019, I was asked to draft the technical aspects of a norm for my country, Spain, based on Schema.org (UNE 178503). It was approved and got traction, and in 2020 I worked on extending it to cope with new needs related to COVID-19. I missed here an opportunity to ask for changes in Schema.org, and things went back to normal.

In 2021 the sector was recovering from the pandemic blow. But in the second semester 2022, I took part in two initiatives I wanted to share with you. The first one is that I got invited as co-chair of this group to an introductory meeting organized by the European Commission. They are considering drafting a standard for the EU, and they wanted input from national organizations, corporates, and groups like ours. To my knowledge, they are still considering what route to take. If someone in this group has got more information and can share it with all of us, please do so.

The second one is that the tourism committee of ISO (International Organization of Standardization) has validated the creation of a working group (ISO/TC 228 WG 21 Semantics in tourism destinations) to draft a new norm (ISO/NP 20525 Tourism and related services — Semantics applied to tourism destinations). I will be co-chairing the working group and represent Spain as technical expert along with a dozen of experts from other countries (please contact me if you want to join this group to put you in touch with the secretary of the ISO tourism committee). The goal is to end up with a norm that can be used by anyone to model and exchange tourism data, and we will certainly look to Schema.org as primary inspiration.

In the forthcoming months, I would like if possible to get any ideas you can provide to improve Schema.org first, and that could help us draft the new ISO norm. If we manage to get this right, we could add a lot of value to society. Personally, I will work towards adding terms related to sustainability as much as possible.

I look forward to improving and promoting Schema.org with you. Take care.