Initially, many film-makers may have disregarded the importance of the places they chose as filming locations outside of their usefulness in the actual creative process. After all, the filmmaker does not usually benefit financially from any tourism that ensues. What is certain now is that, in a world of global travel and global communication, screen-tourism is such a major economic factor for governments that screen industries are benefitting by way of incentives to film in certain locales.
I have recently taken screen-location tours while on vacation in Australia and New Zealand, which brings to mind courses I once taught around the theme of 'space and place in narratives'. Before I write about my individual screen-related tours, it seems useful to consider the overall phenomenon of screen-location tourism, some of the factors operating to promote it, and the dilemmas it seems to pose in academia.
Theorising Screen Location Tourism
Cinematography of place is a special art, presenting a range of technical challenges, yet delivering significant pleasure to the audience. As Beeton points out in her introduction to Film-induced Tourism, the link between tourism and popular narrative has long been established. Beeton draws on the anthropological work of MacCannell that suggests that the fictional association adds meaning to a place, even if the evidence of place as experienced in the fiction has been removed. Cinematography of landscape seems to add further to this 'meaning', yet the majority of research into screen-location tourism tends to disregard the expressive function of place in this context.
Researching and theorising screen-location tourism has proved problematic, falling between the disciplines of media audience research, tourism industry research, and theories about place and culture, raising many questions:
- Should study of screen-tourism be located in the subject of geography, or safely confined within social studies?
- Is its study more appropriate in leisure studies, or perhaps business studies?
- Can literary studies techniques, or semiotic analysis aid understanding?
- Where and how may ideology be understood to operate when the fiction text (film/TV series) is transformed/transported to topography (location) by the reader?
The film student perspective finds focus within audience studies and cultural theory, ranging well beyond basic uses and gratification theory.
Screen Location Tourism in Britain
Stefan Roesch shows, in his overview to The Experiences of Film Location Tourists, that the British Tourist Authority, Visit Britain.com, which has developed movie location maps and guides for several decades, was the first tourism agency to do so. It was the first to share the map via the internet and is now providing a frequently updated resource for a variety of screen-location tourists from all over the world, most recently fans of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 1.
Film location tourism has had a major impact on many parts of the UK, rather more on settings than actual sites. Interest in visiting locations used for popular films, including landscapes such as the Scottish Highlands, Derbyshire Peak District and the Lake District, has continued to grow. Classic film and TV productions made on location in the UK have dramatically increased film tourism at certain historic sites and towns, and this effect continues for years afterwards, UK Film Council research found.
Screen's Active Audience Inhabits History
A new production of Pride and Prejudice increases visitor numbers to the actual stately homes and country houses that feature in that production, while fans continue to visit the houses used by filmmakers in previous productions. The successful 2010 television series, Downton Abbey, will have increased visitors to Highclere Castle, where it is filmed, and other similar houses where the servants' quarters and work-places are accessible. It seems that viewers like to insert themselves into the past through the fictions.
So how does an intending film industry professional understand what this signifies? Does screen-location tourism constitute a similar type of audience activity as attending a Star Trek convention, for instance? Or is wearing fancy dress and meeting the actors of favourite characters a different audience experience?
There seems to be a difference between visiting a movie or television series studio set and taking part in tours of landscapes that provided actual screen-locations. This difference will be further discussed in considering Neighbours and Lord of the Rings tourism, but it suggests a complex relationship between fantasy and reality.
Sources
- Sue Beeton (2005) Film-induced Tourism, Channel View Publications
- Sangkyun Kim, Philip Long, Mike Robinson (2007) 'A Conceptual Model for Researching the Production and Potential Tourist Consumption of Popular Media Texts (PMTs)' in Proceedings of the 5th DeHaan Tourism Management Conference: Culture, Tourism and the Media, Nottingham University Business School
- Stefan Roesch (2009) The Experiences of Film Location Tourists, Channel View Publications
- Top British Film Locations
- UK Film Council (2007) Stately Attraction: How Film and Television Programmes Promote Tourism in the UK
Valerie Williamson - Dr. Val Williamson is a freelance journalist and academic specialising in historical and popular culture topics.
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