Eye tracking: the future of hotel websites thanks to the Master Ciset

Things like “Neuromarketing” or “web technology” have normally been of little importance to the hotel sector. However, like all great revolutions, a change is coming and it is not difficult to predict that, in time, the ideas being discussed in this article will be a go-to option for businesses in the tourist industry.

The students of Ca’ Foscari enrolled in the 2015-2016 Professional Master's programme in Tourism Economics and Management (CISET) have been busy working on eye tracking for a live project that has turned into a website (www.neurowebdesign.it) and into a sort of roadshow within major hotel companies.   

But what is eye tracking? It is a technique able to record the movements of a person’s eyes whilst they are looking at a screen, thus illustrating the entire route traveled by the eye during viewing. Understanding information at a local (semantic) and global (in relation to the context) level, along with the unconscious emotional processes, has a direct influence on the individual actions thus also on the potential purchase of a product.

The device that records eye movements is called an eye tracker remote: the infrared device is hidden inside a monitor so as not to disturb the viewer of the image. The infrared rays are reflected against the lens of the eye and recorded by a sensor. Eye tracking is used to detect the path of visual attention on the screen: how long the user focuses on a particular object on the screen frame, which part confuses the viewer or is difficult to figure out and where the user expects to find certain information on the screen. You can also detect insecurities and hesitations in behavior that might not be detected  by other methods.

The 2015-16 edition of the Master Ciset live project was held in collaboration with Gestione Albergo, a consulting company that supported the students by making its knowledge base and technology available to them. Two groups of students were involved, at a local level, in the development of a hotel benchmarking system for web analytics and the implementation of a study on the usability and effectiveness of having Eyetracking technology on the hotel sites. Four groups have been involved in processing the best online marketing strategy for many companies such as: Safari Crew Tanzania, Limosa Slow Venice, Garda Hotels, Hotel Terme Venezia.

The study gives concrete guidance on how to build a hotel website, the ideal location for the menu  and the booking engine, and the best pictures to use in order to improve the site and increase viewing numbers, thus also increasing reservation numbers.

The eyetracking project is still under way, carried out by one of the students who took the opportunity to continue working with Gestione Albergo during the internship period of their Master's programme. The project's ultimate goal is to give advice to tourism-focused businesses, in order to improve their website in terms of appeal and usability with a view to increasing their turnover.