New research by one of the UK’s leading online independent travel agencies has revealed that more than half of British holidaymakers used social media platforms in the run up to their trip abroad to gain personal recommendations and reviews beforehand.

According to a new poll by one of the UK’s leading online independent travel agencies, social media platforms play a large part in holidaymakers’ decisions about where to visit. According to the poll, half holidaymakers claim to have used sites such as Facebook and Twitter to gather recommendations and reviews from people who may have personal experience of certain resorts.

The poll was carried out by www.sunshine.co.uk, which noticed an increase in traffic directed from social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Apparently more than 1,102 British holidaymakers subsequently took part, each of whom had been abroad in the past two years. Respondents were asked questions regarding how they went about selecting their eventual holiday destination.

Respondents were initially asked, ‘Did you research your chosen destination and accommodation before booking and going on your last holiday?’ to which the overriding majority, 98 percent said ‘yes’. These respondents were then asked to select all that applied from a list of possible answers about how exactly they researched their chosen destination and/or accommodation.

Review websites were the largest recommenders with 62 per cent. However this is pretty much to be expected. Social media platforms had 49 per cent. Only a third asked their travel agent. More than 26 per cent used word of mouth and one in five used a travel guide. Of the respondents who selected social media platforms as a means of researching holiday destinations and accommodation before booking, 61 per cent said they used Facebook, whilst 17 per cent said they used Twitter to do so.