Britain’s top visitor attractions available on Google Street View
Google has announced that it has worked with Europe’s top visitor attraction operator Merlin Entertainments to launch the first ever Street View imagery of some of the UK’s favourite attractions. 360 degree street level imagery of the country’s No 1 theme park resort - Alton Towers Resort; Chessington World of Adventures; LEGOLAND, Windsor; the nation’s thrill capital; THORPE PARK; and the fantastic SEA LIFE attraction in Weymouth - can all now be explored from your computer before you set out. It makes planning a day trip with the family easier than ever before.
Users can not only familiarise themselves with the layout of each of the individual attractions online before they leave home, but also navigate the best route around them and decide which locations to make a bee-line for, in order to make sure they see and do everything they want to and get the very best out of their day.
The images were taken by the Google Trike (a three wheeled bike with camera equipment attached to it) last year towards the end of summer, and are not real time. The imagery was then processed and carefully stitched together before being added to Google Street View today.
‘We are delighted to be working with Google on this exciting new project, and think it will add an invaluable service to our visitors,’ said Mark Fisher Managing Director Resort Theme Parks for Merlin Entertainments. ‘As attractions like theme parks have grown to offer so many more rides and activities, it can be difficult to fit everything in without a bit of planning! Street View will add another dimension to the other tools that we offer our visitors to help in this, and we look forward to adding the facility to more of the Merlin attractions in time.‘
Laura Scott, spokeswoman for Google Street View said: “With summer around the corner and the family clamouring for some adventure, Street View should prove the ideal planning tool for a great day out at any of these exhilarating locations”
Vicki Smith, Marketing Director for Thorpe Park, commented: “With some of Europe’s most extreme rollercoasters on offer at Thorpe Park, Google Street View provides our guests with a fantastic platform to see all of the thrilling rides we have on offer, prior to their visit.”
Google safeguards privacy by blurring faces where they are identifiable and provides the easily accessible ‘report a problem’ tool for flagging inappropriate or sensitive imagery for review and removal. Where blurring tools have missed a face anybody can report these to us and we’ll apply extra blurring.
Many of Britain’s top attractions have invited Google to come and photograph them for Street View and help them attract new visitors. They include The Eden Project, Stonehenge, Warwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle and 19 National Trust properties, all of which can be visited at maps.google.co.uk.