Travel industry players agree that clients want the chance to go on a ‘location vacation’ more than ever in 2023.
Known as ‘set-jetting’, the phenomenon is the result of inspiration gained from well-loved films and TV series. Travellers want to visit those places, or the sets where that magic was created.
“I can see the trend of set-jetting being amplified by the pandemic binge-watching environment,” says Lize Roodt, a Travel Counsellor. “I have done my fair share of Eat Pray Love-inspired travel bookings. But even where a TV series or movie is not the main reason for travel, many clients like to add on day tours to these movie sets and special filming venues to fill their time in the destination.”
“Take Game of Thrones as an example. Perhaps a client will book a Croatia sailing trip and decide to throw in two nights in Dubrovnik so they can walk through King’s Landing. Or maybe your client wants to skip through the hillsides of Austria, singing ‘Doe, a deer’, recalling the Sound of Music – like I did many moons ago,” Roodt adds.
Roodt also points out that the TV and film industry seems to be giving more airtime lately to the landscape of the locations in which they are filming.
“The panoramic shots and scenery panning can only inspire the watcher to wonder: ‘Where is that? I want to go there.’ And it’s wonderful. Bucket-list travel post-pandemic is a strong trend, and where would the clients find inspiration to create this list if not through their screens?”
Social media is at the forefront of set-jetting, with influencers telling people where to go and studios finding it easier to interact with fans, making the dissemination of information surrounding locations easier than ever. Actors are posting on their social media accounts increasingly about the projects they are involved in, sharing behind the scenes information, and promoting their shows, according to research company, Global Data.
The Expedia Group believes that the global trend will certainly pick up throughout 2023, stating that streamed movies and TV shows are now the top sources of travel inspiration (40% of people’s top inspiration), outpacing even the influence of social media (31%). Furthermore, the small screen is now considered on par with recommendations from friends and family when it comes to travel inspiration this year, according to Expedia research for its 2022 Travel Survey.
In the US, more than 68% of travellers considered visiting a destination after seeing it in a show or a movie on a streaming platform, and a whopping 61% booked a trip, says Expedia.
Top contenders for location vacations
The top set-jetter destination is New Zealand – followed by the UK, Paris, New York, and Hawaii, according to Expedia.
Some destinations that have benefited from an influx of tourism due to the phenomenon of set-jetting…
*Both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film series were filmed in Matamata, New Zealand.
* The Bernese Oberland in Switzerland, and Lake Como in Italy are featured in James Bond films.
* Game of Thrones was filmed in both Dubrovnik, Croatia, and Seville, Spain.
*Star Wars was also filmed partly in Seville, as well as in Ireland.
*The recent massively popular series Wednesday was filmed largely in Bucharest, Romania.
Indiana Jones fans will know that The Last Crusade was filmed in Petra, Jordan.
Overtourism concerns?
The former Mayor of Dubrovnik, Andro Vlahusic, said in 2015 that Game of Thrones had contributed to around 5% of the city’s annual growth in tourism. Iceland, as a whole, has also seen a boost in tourism due to the much-loved show.
The increased demand for television and film-related tourism has driven growth in services such as location tours, themed food offerings, visitor experiences, screenings, exhibitions, and fan events, all of which help to ensure the number of visitors to the area remains high, according to Global Data.
This can result in crowds of tourists congregating at one site, and this can also mean overtourism. Skellig Michael in Northern Ireland, which featured in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, welcomed 17 000 tourists in 2017, a 5 000-person increase from the previous year.
A key issue many set-jetting locations face is how to handle a wave of new tourism in a relatively small space of time. This puts enormous strain on infrastructure, which ultimately cannot always cope, as was the case of Maya Bay, on a small island in southern Thailand. The beach was made famous in the 2000 Leonardo DiCaprio film, The Beach, leading Thai authorities to close the destination from 2018 to 2022 due to overtourism.
