Briton’s may like to be beside the seaside but half of us do not recognise it – often confusing it with tropical paradises thousands of miles away, a new study shows.

In a year when the Marine Conservation Society announced the cleanest UK beaches for twenty years, the Butlins survey of 2000 people shows that Brits not only don’t know what their seaside looks like but they’re also not taking advantage of the coastal beauty on their doorstep. In fact two million Brits have never even been.

Butlins showed Brits images of some of the country’s best loved beaches, including three of its own at the famous resorts of Bognor Regis, Minehead and Skegness and found that the majority confused our coast with destinations as far flung as Sweden, Canada and Australia.

The survey reveals:

-          Most mistook the English Riviera for the Mediterranean. Only 29% of those polled recognised Torquay, the rest thought it was a shot of the Cote de Azure, Sicily or Corsica.

-          The UK’s sunniest spot as identified by the met office, Bognor Regis, baffled a third of respondents the majority of whom thought it was in Spain

-          A sunset shot of Skegness was confused with destinations as different as the Seychelles, California’s Long Beach and even Mexico

Butlins is championing British beaches after the shores of its three resorts received a record number of Blue Flags from the Marine Conservation Society this year. The company believes that the results of the survey indicate that the public has an outdated perception of the UK seaside and its beaches.

When asked to rank five world beaches in order of desirability to visit – Bognor Regis came in last while Kamilo Beach in Hawaii, renowned for being littered with marine debris, came in first. This is despite Bognor Regis being officially recognised as the sunniest place in the UK and being listed as one of the country’s cleanest beaches in the Good Beach Guide.

Mike Crowther, Butlins Operations Director, said; ‘The UK coastline boasts some of the cleanest, most spectacular  beaches in the world – and yet our survey shows that many Brits would rather visit less beautiful, and sometimes dirty, beaches abroad just because they are in a different country.’

“At Butlins we’re incredibly lucky to have such natural beauty on the doorstep of our resorts but at the same time we are well aware of the great responsibility that comes with that and we continue to continue to work alongside local councils to ensure that our beaches retains their status as some of the best in theUK.”