Descriptive Analysis of the Recent Advances of Film-Induced Tourism: Identification of Strengths, Gaps and Opportunities

Abstract

Film-induced tourism is a recent topic in academic research, only studied since the ’90s, and especially in the US and UK, followed by Australia, Asia, and Europe, becoming a worldwide theme with its expansion to Asia. In the beginning, the main studies were focused on justifying the importance of studying the topic and concentrating on the power of film and tv productions in motivating tourism demand, followed by a theoretical andmethodological improvement focused on impacts, development, andmarketing initiatives. At themoment, studies are focused on a crossdisciplinary approach and commodification of location and culture. Nowadays, numerous studies focus on this subject, and this paper intends to analyse the latest advances in the field over the last eight years. Our study explores their strengths, potential, gaps, and opportunities. In terms of results, we can affirm the strengths related to the studies centred on the impacts of film-induced tourism on destinations, film-induced tourism as a motivator for the intention to visit through exhibited images, and tourism marketing activities and initiatives based on film and TV productions. In terms of gaps and opportunities, these are related to tourist experiences and authenticity, celebrities, sustainable planning, cross-disciplinary studies, residents’ perspectives, consumers’ answers to brand placement, the role of governments in terms of strategies and policies, the importance of social networks in thev field, and the need for more studies to be developed worldwide, not only based on western examples.

Keywords: film-induced tourism, tourism, film and media, television, tourist
destinations