Film Induced Tourism: Hunting of Potential Tourist Spots by Frame Mosaicing

Introduction

Tourism industry has become more matured recently. Now-a-days, tourists have become more experienced and selective while choosing holiday destination. Presently, tourism industry has become very competitive. A large number of new holiday destinations are trying to attract the tourists to their destinations. The tourists of current generation ask for those destinations which are closely related to any movie or tv-series or have caught their eye while watching some movie. It is necessary to market such places quiet effectively in order to attract new market segment and maintain the market share. Hence, the main focus should be on the holiday destination’s positioning and differentiation. Lot of tourists generally prefer to visit those destinations which are featured in films or movies and television series. It is to be noted, that such holiday destinations or places or the movies are not related to tourism promotion campaigns. This is known as film-induced tourism or movie-induced tourism. Film-induced tourism refers to tourist visiting those destinations that featured on video, movie or television. Film induced tourism is one of the fast growing sector in tourism industry. The main reason behind the increasing popularity of film induced tourism is the rise of international travel and the growth of television as well as entertainment industry. In 1996, Schofield (1996) suggested that film-induced tourism would become fashionable since large numbers of audiences are keen on cinematographic history through actual visiting experience. Those people seeking sights seen on the screen are referred as film-induced tourists. While choosing such destinations, films do not only help to increase short term tourism revenue to the destination but also offers long-term prosperity. As a result of the growing interest of film-induced tourism, it has caught a lot of attention from researchers.

Previously a lot of work (Gartner 1989; Beeton 2004; Busby et al. 2001) has been done in the domain of film induced tourism. Also related works have shown the pictures of destinations play a vital role in guiding the tourist decision-making process. More favourable image of the destination leads to greater likelihood of that particular destination being selected as the choice of the tourist(Chon 1990; Grihault 2003). Butler (1990) discussed that films play a vital role in influencing the travel preference (Croy & Walker 2003; Demetredi 1996; Echtner 1991) of the tourists who choose holiday destination according its attributes creating a desirable destination picture through their representation. Entertainment media such as movies, television series generally extract the knowledge of many aspects of any country such as culture, nature, climate and the people leading to constructing the attitude towards the country. Hence, film induced tourism increases interest of those nations present in the movies, also its positive image attract the tourists as well (Iwashita, 2003;2006).Film induced tourism also provides both Leisure activities like watching movies as well as travelling. Thus, a temporary relief from hectic routine life is provided by film induced tourism (Carl et al., 2007). Films (Zain et al., 2012, Kim et al.2003, 2008) can attract viewers to choose their destination by physical properties such as landscape, sceneries. Also those films’ associated theme provides an overview of the country or place with the help of the film’s storyline, actors, emotion, multiple events or festivals (Iwashita 2006; Riley & Van Doren, 1992). People love to visit those particular places which influenced them a lot during the movie or television series (Schama, 1996). Thus, film induced tourism leaves a big impression on the tourist’s mind. In Table 1 a summary of different types of film induced tourism and their characteristics is illustrated.