We sat in one room watching a man have sensors attached to his face â€" two above the eyebrows and a couple on his cheeks and the sensors, using Electromyography (EMG) technology, will tell us when he’s frustrated or delighted as he browses the Expedia website for his dream hotel.
Turns out he’s not as excited about the hotel search process as he is when he was asked to look for his favourite puppy photo â€" the spikes in the signals we saw on the monitor were more extreme during the canine search.
We were being given a demo of the new Expedia Innovation Lab which opened in Singapore today â€" its first in Asia and its third in the world, after Seattle and London.
While not as grand and large as the one in Seattle, the Singapore lab is a strategic investment by the world’s largest travel company with $72b of gross bookings to not only drive consumer research development in Asia Pacific but also be the beachhead for mobile innovation and deeper understanding of consumers in a region that will influence global travel trends more and more.
The Innovation Lab was first created in Seattle in 2010 to give a more scientific approach to research, using cutting edge technology such as eye tracking and Facial Electromyography, which was added five years ago, inspired by the game Candy Crush.
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