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Science can help you book your vacation

Travel website Expedia wants to read its customers' minds to stay ahead of rivals

Business Life, Expedia, vacation, travel
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Expedia is hoping that its ‘usability lab’ in London will help the company find ways to reduce the stress and frustration associated with making online bookings for travel (Photo: iSTOCK)

Jeremy Kahn
The travel company Expedia is trying to read my mind. Or more accurately, it’s trying to analyse my emotions to figure out how I’m feeling as I go about booking travel on its website. To do so, Expedia’s researchers have wired me with electrodes. They are tracking my eye movements and scrutinising me through one-way glass in their recently opened “usability lab” in London.

The lab is an important component in Bellevue, Washington-based Expedia’s efforts to stay ahead of a growing raft of competitors, from Priceline’s Booking.com to China’s Ctrip — which recently bought Skyscanner — to Airbnb and TripAdvisor,