Expedia returns its browsers’ gaze

BEYOND GOOD deals on hotels and airlines, travel website Expedia has developed cutting-edge technology to analyse consumer behaviour. The effort to improve convenience for its online customers centres on the Expedia Innovation Lab at its offices in Singapore. 
Aiming to keep up with travel trends around the world, this is the third lab after a first opened in 2010 at Expedia headquarters in Seattle, Washington, and a second last year in London. 

The test subject completes a series of task as part of the research process at teh Expedia Innovation Labs.

The firm spent US$1 billion on the technology in a bid to enhance the client’s travel experience and share real-time feedback with business partners.
“It’s a big innovation hub for Expedia,” Expedia Asia chief executive Jonty Neal says of the Singapore lab. “We’re very focused on solving challenges for our partners and researching travel so we can be the leading marketplace online. 
“The Asian travel market is growing about four times as fast as the one in North America, so it’s very exciting for an online business. We expect to soon be handling about 20 per cent of all online travel business in Asia.
“With this technology,” Neal says, “we can gain insights about consumers and develop products to meet their needs. We’ve also started developing a mobile marketplace to keep up with customer expectations.”
Five years ago Expedia found inspiration in the popular Candy Crush game to create a “more visual experience” in the online travel marketplace through eye-tracking and electromography. 
The lab resembles a living room in an ordinary home, but it’s full of gadgets and custom software that are used to monitor what people are looking at while browsing the Expedia website.

A researcher reviews live data being collected in the lab.

“The eye-tracking software links to a camera to capture what they’re specifically interested in, and the facial electromyography actually gauges from their expressions how they feel,” says Arthur Chapin, senior vice president for product and design.
Electromyography entails using a pair of sensors resting on the face near the eyebrows and others around the cheeks to record changes in facial muscles. It gives researchers a pretty accurate idea what real-time impacts the experiences being shown on screen at the site or on the app are having on the wearer. 
When this is paired with eye-tracking, researchers skilled in cognitive psychology and data processing get a clear reading of where the user was looking and what reaction they had.   
Consumers who agree to be tested sign a contact, says Neal. 
“We do about 140 tests a month around the world and use the research results to create new features. We’ve developed four services offering choices in savings that build consumer confidence.”
Such scientific methodology is at the core of Expedia’s “test and learn” approach. Last year it ran 1,450 tests globally to glean traveller insights, up from 1,375 in 2015. 
The Innovation Lab also developed Scratchpad, an “intelligent personal assistant” with which browsers can digitally record the results of their online searches. It’s more than just a matter of saving them a hunt for a pen and paper – price trends, flight information and the like are automatically updated.
“One key travel trend is that customers are using their mobile phones more to search for information about hotels, airlines and destinations,” Neal says. “About 45 per cent of customers coming to our website are using phones, so it’s strategically important that we focus on the mobile business, and that’s where the innovation lab comes into play.”
The Expedia site has become steadily more interactive, giving travellers a chance to check out a variety of savings and directly discuss, for example, local attractions and other activities with a given hotel’s concierge. Meanwhile hotels can access real-time feedback from guests.