The Scotsman

Picture power puts Skye above Eiffel Tower

- By PAUL RODGER

The Instagram generation prefer to visit the Isle of Skye over the Eiffel Tower, it has been revealed.

Skye has become hugely popular on the social media platform and has been named Europe’s top ‘ road trip destinatio­n’.

Research of 47 million social media posts showed the island has nearly double the hits of the worldf amous Eiff el Tower i n Paris.

It found that Skye had almost 21,000 posts, looking at destinatio­ns used with the hashtag # roadtrip, while the Eiffel Tower only had 12,463.

Skye hashtags # f ai r ypools, # ol dmanofstor­r, # portree and # eileandona­ncastle also feature among the top 50 words associated with road trips.

Visitor numbers to Skye have boomed i n recent years, partly as a result of heavy promotion and its popularity as a film location.

But concerns have been growing on the island that its rising popularity has a downside. The island now has one Airbnb on offer for every ten homes and medi cal s er vi ces are under increasing pressure.

With around 500,000 tourists a year, complaints have been made that the island’s infrastruc­ture is struggling to cope.

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 ??  ?? A view of Portree before sunset and the spectacula­r turquoise Fairy Pools are among the reasons Skye has proved so popular with Instagramm­ers
A view of Portree before sunset and the spectacula­r turquoise Fairy Pools are among the reasons Skye has proved so popular with Instagramm­ers

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