Google shortlists tourist spots
Updated on 17 June 2009
A total of 16 historic landmarks have been shortlisted from more than 10,000 suggestions of places Google should film for its controversial Street View mapping application, the firm has said.
A spokeswoman for the company said the entries were received after it launched a survey last month for the public to suggest "extra special tourist spots" for its new trike, mounted with a camera, to visit in the summer.
The 18-stone machine, powered by a cyclist in a Google cycle helmet and clothing, will have the same capability as the Street View cars, and will visit the UK for a short period.
The finalists are the Angel of the North, Bamburgh Castle, Cheddar Gorge, Colchester Castle, Corfe Castle, Durdle Door, Eden Project, Ironbridge, Kenilworth Castle, Lands End, Leeds Castle, Loch Ness, Millennium Stadium, Pembrokeshire Coast, Stonehenge, and Warwick Castle.
The survey, devised with VisitBritain, the tourist information service, asked the public to submit ideas under five categories - castles, coastal paths, natural wonders, historic buildings and monuments and sports stadiums.
The public can now vote on the first three locations to be visited by the trike online at: maps.google.co.uk/streetviewinfo.
A Google spokeswoman said: "We've been thrilled with the suggestions made by the British public and are excited to see where our tricyclist will visit first. Whatever takes your fancy, from the modern to the historic, the natural to the man-made we hope the public will get voting to put their tourist gems on the map."
Justin Reid, head of online marketing for VisitBritain, said: "People have really been caught up in the potential of the Street View Trike with thousands nominating the locations they'd like to see captured on camera."
The survey and launch of the trike comes after Street View, which allows people to view and navigate 360-degree street-level imagery in 25 British towns, attracted a glut of privacy complaints after it was launched earlier this year.
Google removed scores of pictures from Street View following the launch including one of a man emerging from a sex shop in London's Soho district and another of a man being sick on the pavement outside a pub in east London. The company said as with all Street View imagery in the UK, they would apply face-blurring and licence plate blurring to all images collected by the trike to protect people's privacy.
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