London Travel, Drink & Food

PhotoSpotLand, a startup based at London’s TravelTech Lab, launched “Discovering London as a Londoner” — the first worldwide photomapping campaign of a capital, based on crowdsourcing contributions from residents and tourists alike. PhotoSpotLand’s mobile and web-based tools will allow users to photomap London landmarks, attractions and hidden gems.

PhotoSpotLand will give proud Londoners a chance to show their own personal perspectives on London to the world – and to win prizes in the process. Using PhotoSpotLand’s innovative crowdsourcing capabilities, London will be mapped by Londoners as never before – by smartphone cameras as well as by amateur and professional photographers.

“Throughout my 30 years of work in the worlds of culture and tourism, my dream was always to create a tool that allows people to show the rest of the world the best parts of their cities,” said Mario Bucolo, PhotoSpotLand founder and CEO, entrepreneur and award winning photographer.
“Now, thanks to PhotoSpotLand’s innovative web and mobile platform, we are ready to make travel industry history. For the first time Londoners and tourists together will photomap this great city, giving life to what London’s Mayor hoped for in a recent interview:‘I want more visitors to experience London as the glorious garden of culture we as Londoners know it to be.’”

“The recent successful introduction of the PhotoSpotLand app was helped greatly by our company’s presence at London’s TravelTech Lab,” continued founder Mario Bucolo. “And now we are proud to make London the first city in what will become a worldwide, crowdsourced photomapping effort using PhotoSpotLand’s suite of creative tools.”.

The ‘Discovering London as a Londoners’ campaign will last for three months, starting Monday, October 12, 2015 to January 10, 2016, and will be open both to Londoners and tourists.

To support the Campaign, and as incentive to photomap London, PhotoSpotLand has also announced a contest that will award prizes to participants. The main contest sponsors are Canon and Catania International Airport.

Alberto Spinelli, Digital Services Director – Canon Europe Ltd., comment in this way the support to the Campaign: “Canon’s role in photography is an ever-evolving one. At our core we want to share our passion and inspire everyone to explore the world of imaging and help people capture their memories in outstanding quality. Photospotland is a great application that helps users to unleash the photographer inside them – we are excited to be supporting this competition to help them on their journey to building an engaged community.”

The CEO of Catania International Airport, Gaetano Mancini said that “the Airport System of Eastern Sicily is keenly interested in the innovations citizens of Catania are now creating at the TravelTech Lab in London. The United Kingdom is an extremely important market for both the Catania and Comiso airports in Eastern Sicily. That is why we are proud to support the campaign organized by PhotoSpotLand and offer a travel package (including flight and hotel) to attend the Sant’Agata celebration (February 3-5) in Catania. This is the ideal event for those who want to take photos of rare beauty.”

PhotoSpotLand will also include prizes or promotions from other sponsors, including Uber, The London Helicopter, Sheraton Catania, Cycle.bike, Etna Coffee, Vini Italiani, and Calietra. And more sponsors will soon join the campaign, with PhotoSpotLand working to partner with London’s main attractions as they are prime subjects of the photomapping campaign. Prizes will be awarded every seven days, and some prizes will be reserved to Travel Bloggers, who have a fundamental role in promoting London.

The photomapping campaign’s Official Hashtags are:
#LondonAsLondoners #PhotoMappingLondon #DiscoverYourLondon.

The PhotoSpotLand platform is active on the web at photospotland.com and via mobile application for iOS on App Store and, soon, for Android on Google Play Store.