VisitBritain, the UK tourism promotion agency, and Betapond, a Facebook and social technology developer, have launched the first Facebook Places platform to promote a whole country.

The VisitBritain Facebook Places platform launched yesterday, and offers an opportunity for all UK attractions to market themselves to the 30m international visitors to Britain each year.

The first phase of the project unveils a leader board of the most popular attractions in the UK, ranked by the number of check-ins on Facebook Places, enabling people to see which attractions are most popular amongst their friends.

Each of the UK’s estimated 50,000 UK attractions will be able to register themselves on the platform, which will allow visitors to check in, recommend attractions to friends, and see where their friends have checked in. VisitBritain will publish a daily ranking of the Top 50 UK attractions, based on the number of check-ins.

“We are creating a ‘global guest book’ for international tourists to share their experiences and to recommend attractions to their own friends and family,” says Betapond managing director, Richard Delevan. “It’s a beautifully simple but effective way for VisitBritain to harness the power of the 250,000 tourists that interact with their Facebook page on a daily basis.”

As of today, tourists can check into over 150 UK attractions, which will be added to over the coming months. Over the next year, VisitBritain and Betapond say they will launch new elements to the campaign that will incentivise more tourists to choose Britain, check in at attractions and invite their friends.