Promoting Destinations via Film Tourism: An Empirical Identification of Supporting Marketing Initiatives

Film tourism is a growing phenomenon worldwide, fueled by both the growth of the entertainment industry and the increase in international travel. This article proposes a model for exploiting film tourism marketing opportunities. It identifies the optimum marketing factors that encourage film tourists to visit destinations that appear (or are depicted) in the movies. Factor analysis reveals four types of marketing activities in which destinations can engage to promote film tourism: proactive efforts to encourage producers and studios to film at the location, efforts to generate media publicity around the film and its location, marketing activities that promote the film location after production, and peripheral marketing activities that leverage film tourism potential. Results of a stepwise multiple regression analysis indicate a high correlation between film tourism success and one of the four factors: the proactive efforts of destinations that encourage producers and studios to film at their location.