13 May 2013

Skegness and London battle for May Day holiday top spot among M8 community!


Image courtesy of guardian.co.uk

We love May. It’s the best month for UK bank holidays, there is SO much going on, and people are beginning to get excited at the prospect of the summer.

Last weekend most of us were lucky enough to get some sunshine - for part of the weekend at least - and boy did our M8 community make the most of it! Having had a look at the searches made by the M8 community, we think there are some interesting points to note...

In between all of the eating, drinking and socialising (responsibly, of course) we took to the road to explore the UK, planning over 86,000 car journeys which added up to travelling a whopping 6.32 million miles. That’s the same as around 300 return trips to Australia, or travelling the length of Britain over 8000 times, all in one weekend you crazy lot! We also must mention the pedestrians out there - they made plans to navigate / walk / run / hobble / crawl more than 1600 miles over the weekend and thoroughly deserve any overindulgence they enjoyed once they reached their destination.

So where did you all go? The answer is - all over! Well, a lot of you searched for London, rightly so as there was just so much to choose from with the many festivals, family events and entertainment being provided across the capital. While our top search over the weekend was indeed the capital, we saw a huge number searching for the good old traditional British seaside resorts.

Our top 5 destination searches:

  1. London
  2. Blackpool
  3. Skegness
  4. Brighton
  5. Manchester


Did you expect to see Skegness so far up the list? We didn’t either! There were a huge number of searches for Skegness, a coastal resort famed for its beaches, white knuckle rides, illuminations and lively cabaret nightlife. The trend continued, with Blackpool, Bognor Regis and Barry Island proving popular searches over the course of the Bank Holiday. The once-popular, often-misunderstood Victorian seaside resorts are definitely making a come back, and we think that’s fabulous!

The May Day bank holiday traditionally marks the beginning of the summer season for major UK attractions and thankfully it wasn’t a wash out, so people were eager to get out and about visiting the range of theme parks, zoos and other attractions that are dotted around the country.

Our top 5 searches for attractions looked like this:

  1. Alton Towers
  2. Chester Zoo
  3. London Eye
  4. Blackpool Pleasure Beach
  5. Legoland

Following the turn by turn navigation prompts - remember we just added Stephen Fry to our available voices - our M8 community planned routes exploring the length and breadth of the United Kingdom in search of fun times with friends and family. Checking in with the Good Pub Guide and Michelin Guide features, users made sure that the country pub, cafe or restaurant they chose was bang on in terms of price suitability and most importantly served tasty food and drinks.  Those hunting down a bargain checked with the in-app MyVoucherCodes feature wherever they were to browse the active offers and deals in the nearby area. The budget savvy among our M8 community are a canny lot, getting more bang for their buck over the bank holiday!

Many searched for green spaces and the seaside to enjoy the best weather we’ve had so far this year, and who could blame them when the UK looks absolutely gorgeous in the sunshine, and all you really need is a picnic and people to share it with!

We’re seeing a seaside resort renaissance, and we can’t wait to see how these much loved resorts buzz over the summer months.

So, where did you go over the bank holiday and did M8 help you get there? Tell us all about it over on Twitter @localm8, or on our M8 Facebook page.

Have a great week, folks and here’s to May - a month filled with bank holidays and smiling faces!

Cheers, M8 your local mate

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