The UK’s fastest growing online independent travel agent has conducted research of more than 1,500 women to find the perfect places for wedding proposals around the world.

A new study by www.sunshine.co.uk, one of the UK’s leading online independent travel agents, has revealed the ten favourite places for wedding proposals around the world. More obvious locations such as the Eiffel Tower are still popular, but some lesser known choices such as the beach on the Greek island of Skopelos, where the hit movie ‘Mamma Mia!’ was filmed, also appear.

Sunshine.co.uk asked 1,694 single women where they would most like to be proposed to. Less than 1 in 5, 18%, said their ideal proposal would be at home and 22% said they would prefer to be asked in a fancy restaurant. Over half, 57%, are hoping for a bigger gesture and would like to be asked for their hand in marriage abroad. The study also found that 1 in 10 women would consider popping the question themselves.

The women who participated in the research were also asked the question “If you were proposed to abroad, which of the following would be dream locations?” The results were as follows;

1. On a Gondola, Venice – 86%

1. Times Square, New York – 77%

1. By the Pyramids, Cairo – 71%

1. Grand Canyon, Arizona – 63%

1. On the beach, Skopelos (Mamma Mia! set) – 59%

1. Great Barrier Reef, Queensland – 54%

1. Hot Air Balloon Flight, Barcelona – 42%

1. On Safari, Lake Nakuru – 23%

1. Top of the Eiffel Tower, Paris – 19%

10. On the slopes, Mount Blanc – 11%

Chris Brown, co-founder of sunshine.co.uk, commented on the favourite places abroad for wedding proposals;

“It’s interesting to see that the Eiffel Tower is slipping in popularity with women when it comes to wedding proposals, as I think many men would class it as an ideal place to pop the question. I think in this day and age, it’s all about thinking outside the box, which is proven by the appearance of Skopelos in this list, the Greek Island where Mamma Mia! was filmed.

He continued, “The Great Barrier Reef is definitely an interesting one; perhaps underwater proposals are set to increase! With Valentine’s Day approaching, we wanted to gather some statistics regarding perfect proposal destinations, both out of interest and to give the guys some ideas.”

LINK http://www.sunshine.co.uk

ENDS

10 YETIS JOURNALIST TRIVIA QUIZ:

For a chance to win a prize, be the first to respond with the correct answer to the following question:

Q: Which sea is the Great Barrier Reef located in?

For more information or to set up interviews with Chris Brown please contact Shannon Haigh of 10 Yetis Public Relation Agency, on 01452 348211 or email [email protected]

Editors Notes

Sunshine.co.uk is the UK’s leading online independent travel agent and was founded by Chris Brown and Chris Clarkson, the same people behind Holiday Watchdog which was bought by TripAdvisor in February 2008 for an undisclosed amount of money. Sunshine.co.uk offers low cost holidays and budget flights to destinations all over the world as well as great deals and discounted hotels.

The UK’s leading discount and voucher code website has seen a significant increase in people accessing the site from their mobile phone in the last year, with sales exceeding £2.5m over mobile internet browsers for the site last month.

More than 600,000 people visited discount voucher code website www.MyVoucherCodes.co.uk via their mobile browsers throughout December 2009, according to traffic statistics from the site, up 158% on December 2008.

Traffic from mobile phone browsers consistently increased month-on-month for the site in 2009 as smartphones increased in popularity, with more than £2.5 million spent through MyVoucherCodes.co.uk alone.

In December 2008, 378,000 unique visits from mobile phone browsers were noted by retail expert and MyVoucherCodes.co.uk founder Mark Pearson, up to just over 600,000 for December 2009. To put this into perspective, more than 11m people logged on to the site throughout December to search for Christmas savings – with mobile phone visits accounting for 5% of total traffic to the website.

Sales through mobile phone web browsers were consistent with the growth in users accessing the site through their mobiles, with an increase of 208% from £1.2m in December 2008, up to £2.5m in December 2009.

A study of 1,820 MyVoucherCodes.co.uk users found that 8% had surfed the site from the comfort of their mobile phones.

Of those that had used their mobile browser to use the site, 62% said they had used the site to search for discount voucher codes whilst physically shopping on the High Street to see if they could get a better deal online.

11% said they thought that mobile browsers were improving to the point where they felt they used them more regularly than desktop browsers.

Discount retail expert Mark Pearson, founder of www.MyVoucherCodes.co.uk said,

“It seems that many consumers are literally going to High Street shops to effectively sample products, and then searching for, and in many cases, buying whilst still in-store having found a better deal online through their mobiles!

“Where High Street prices remain relatively high, the same retailer may be offering 20% off online through voucher codes. If you have a particular product in mind, it’s always worth checking to see if you can save any money on it online, as there is often more choice through different retailers all vying for your cash, even at discounted rates.

“Although some people are starting to leave the Credit Crunch behind them, the savings are still there to be made and it’d be impractical to waste them.”

MyVoucherCodes.co.uk features discount voucher codes and offers from the most popular retailers in the UK, including Currys, Comet, Argos, Dell, House of Fraser and many more.

The site had sales exceeding £481m in 2009, saving consumers £52m on products they would otherwise have paid full RRP for.

Link: http://www.myvouchercodes.co.uk

***ENDS***

10 YETIS JOURNALIST TRIVIA QUIZ:

For a chance to win a prize, be the first to respond with the correct answer to the following question:

Q. What percentage of MyVoucherCodes’ total traffic does traffic from mobile phone browsers account for?

For more information contact Gabrielle Lofthouse, [email protected] 01452 348211 or on Twitter @Gabriella_PRowl.

EDITORS NOTES

Mark Pearson, MD of MyVoucherCodes is a regular media contributor regarding online shopping and the credit crunch. At 29 his personal worth is more than £30 million. Mark was previously a trainee chef working for Gordon Ramsay at Claridges, London.

MyVoucherCodes has had sales exceeding £481m in the last year
Consumer savings on online shopping via MyVoucherCodes.co.uk up from £28m in 2008 to £52m in 2009.
MyVoucherCodes is the UK’s most popular discount site.

52% of American workers admit to searching the internet for information about their colleagues and managers; hoping to find some juicy gossip to spread around the office.

A study of 1,092 American workers, commissioned by Yasni people search, has revealed that 52% admit to searching online for their colleagues’ and managers’ social networking pages, blogs they have commented on and forums they are members of, in the hope of finding out some hidden secrets about those they work with.

By searching on social networking sites, forums and blogs, Americans are able to find pictures, comments or status updates that may give a deeper insight into their fellow workers and management. This may ultimately lead to better relationships within the workplace, as people will know who they share similar interests with and how to strike up a conversation that will truly impress the boss.

For searches like this, Yasni reveals accurate results; checking a person simultaneously on more than 100 online sources within seconds and collating the most relevant information.

Andy Barr, CCO of Yasni had the following to say;

“The statistics represent how U.S. people are benefitting from the services Yasni has to offer. More than half of employees have the advantage of knowing what their manager likes to do in their spare time and what better way to impress your boss than to show an interest in their favourite hobby?

“However, we are also highlighting the importance of checking your own online reputation as there have been incidents across the world whereby members of staff have been disciplined and even sacked for writing inappropriate comments about fellow members of staff, phoning in sick and then uploading photos of a wild night out or just updating their social networking status throughout the day, when they should be working.

“As we always stress, it is important for people to remember that social networking is just that; ‘social’. Therefore all information should be used intelligently and with discretion.”

***ENDS***

For more information about Yasni visit http://www.yasni.com

Logos and images of Andy Barr are available on request

Further information about Yasni:

Emma Stockley, 10 Yetis PR

Tel: +44 01452 348 211

E: [email protected]

Note to Editors

About Yasni (www.yasni.com):

Yasni is the world’s most popular people search website with more than 26 million page requests and approximately 10 million visitors on six continents each month.

People search, which accounts for nearly one-third of all search queries on the Internet, is one of the largest online markets as more and more people turn to the Web to find information about old friends, co-workers, business partners, job applicants, neighbours, prospective mates and much more.

In just a few seconds, Yasni provides a free and comprehensive overview of people and their associated networks, including contacts, pictures and other publicly available information.

Yasni is also the ultimate resource to control one’s online reputation and manage what information is available about them on the Web.