Science can help you book your vacation

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

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,