17 May 2006
What do the movies The Lord of the Rings and The Piano have in common? They were shot in New Zealand. But then, thanks to New Zealand tourism campaigns, you probably already knew that.
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| Glen Croy is investigating how the tourism industry can make the most of film blockbusters. |
Increasingly, tourism promoters are capitalising on their destinations being featured as locations in popular films. PhD researcher Mr Glen Croy, from the Tourism Research Unit in the Faculty of Business and Economics, is investigating this phenomenon.
Mr Croy said the best example of this strategy in action was the campaignTourism New Zealand mounted to link its product with The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. A survey of tourists to New Zealand showed 89 per cent of visitors knew the films were shot there, even though their plots were set in the fictitious locale of Middle Earth.
"New Zealand has done it the best so far. Obviously that was helped by the films themselves being so incredibly successful, and even having a cult following," Mr Croy said.
Another highly successful campaign Mr Croy in investigating is that of the Scottish Tourist Board about 10 years ago.
It negotiated with the film company MGM to run free travel advertisements before United States screenings of Rob Roy.
"That movie, along with Braveheart, Loch Ness and The Bruce are estimated to have brought Scotland between ₤7 and ₤12 million in extra tourist dollars in the 1990s," Mr Croy said.
His research cites dozens of other examples in which popular films have put places on the tourism map. The Sound Of Music is estimated to have brought millions of tourist dollars to Austria each year since it was released in 1965. But if such beneficial tourism spin-offs were once unintended, Mr Croy argues that should no longer be so.
"The use of locations creates an initial economic impact, but more importantly for the further development of tourism, it reinvigorates the image of a location. The way image is managed through film should be given special attention in destination management planning," he said.
Mr Croy will present some preliminary research findings at the International Tourism and Media Conference to be jointly hosted by Monash, La Trobe and Otago Universities from 28 November -- 1 December. | 
