The top UK attractions, such as the O2, Wembley Stadium and Hyde Park, attracted five times more online ‘check-ins’ from Facebook Places that Foursquare, according to a new study.
The findings come from VisitBritain’s Love UK’s Top50 Places Facebook campaign, which was developed by Betapond.
While nearly 1 million (955,437) check-ins originated from Facebook Places just 176,724 came from Foursquare.
The study indicated that the UK’s top attraction is The O2 stadium with 72,817 Facebook check-ins and 7,764 check-ins on Foursquare.
While Facebook Places is the most popular (hardly surprising with almost half the UK population using the social network) its use does appear to focus on mainstream attractions.
Foursquare, on the other hand, was used more by those visiting attractions which Betapond’s Declan Kennedy says are more offbeat, such as the Tate Modern or Selfridges.
The findings come a week after Facebook announced it was dropping Places as a standalone service, instead providing a universal location tool for users to tag photos, wall posts, status updates and more.
The VisitBritain research co-incides with the launch of its new smartphone application.
The UK Top50 app to allow visitors to ‘check in’ to their locations through Facebook to find out what they can see and do nearby and get details of any available deals or promotions.
Users can also see a list of the 50 most popular places in the UK, access an up-to-date ‘what’s hot’ guide and browse through an A to Z listing of more than 500 locations to visit.
Justin Reid, head of online at VisitBritain, said: ‘It is clear with the advances in technology and the ever increasing demand for mobile phone usage abroad that there is a demand to get tourists to top attractions across Britain in a creative and fun way – our UK Top50 app does exactly that.
‘VisitBritain continues to develop our digital channels with new mobile strategies, making sure we stay at the forefront of technology.’
According to recent research by the national tourism agency, 60% of tourists visiting places in the UK for holiday or leisure purposes use a mobile phone at least once during their stay.
