Daters from across Britain and Western Europe set a new Guinness World Record for the world’s highest ever speed date at an altitude of 35,000 feet, as they flew to the capital of romance, Venice.
The Guinness World Record has been broken as part of Expedia’s ‘Holidate’, a social experiment designed to prove the link between travel and love, with daters taking part in a series of different dates over 24 hours; in the UK, in the air and in Venice.
The 60 male and female singletons, including 30 daters from the UK, signed up for the Expedia dating experiment through new dating website, DoingSomething, the first dating site that focuses on interesting, fun activities people can do on dates.
The lucky participants experienced four dating experiences to see how different factors affect the dating experience; one in the UK in a traditional bar date setting where they were not allowed to discuss travel and one in the same setting where, this time they were allowed to talk about travel, one in the air on a flight over to Venice consisting of 21 brief encounters to set the new record, and one in Venice, the city of love, while doing an activity based on their shared interests in the romantic city. Passengers really liked this experience, as they said it was “amazing”, “original” and “unforgetable”
The world’s largest online travel company launched the ‘Holidate’ after research found that travel is the top topic when it comes to a first date. Expedia found that the majority of Brits use travel (44%) as a topic of conversation when trying to woo a potential partner – trumping the usual music (41%) and work (39%) chat.
Expedia’s research also found that travel is key to attracting the perfect partner; so much so that one in ten people are prepared to lie about the places they have been to impress Mr or Mrs right. Perhaps they are wise to do so with a quarter of us admitting to being turned off someone due to the lack of travel experience. A fifth of us cited this as the biggest turn off when looking at online dating profiles and a third of Brits being positively attracted to someone based on their travels.
The lucky participants experienced four dating experiences to see how different factors affect the dating experience; one in the UK in a traditional bar date setting where they were not allowed to discuss travel and one in the same setting where, this time they were allowed to talk about travel, one in the air on a flight over to Venice consisting of 21 brief encounters to set the new record, and one in Venice, the city of love, while doing an activity based on their shared interests in the romantic city.
