Popular films and television series can drive visitor numbers to filming locations by 25% to 300%—a phenomenon the travel industry has quantified but rarely exploited properly at the luxury tier. The challenge for discerning travellers isn’t accessing these locations; any competent travel agent can book a “Game of Thrones tour.” The challenge is securing genuinely inimitable experiences that provide cultural depth and social capital rather than commoditised group itineraries. This is where film tourism diverges sharply: between those who visit locations and those who genuinely inhabit the narrative geography of significant cultural works. Bespoke film tourism, properly executed, delivers the latter.
Who This Is For
High-net-worth individuals and culturally engaged travellers who recognise that cinema and television have become primary drivers of cultural conversation and destination perception. If you’ve found yourself discussing the Amalfi Coast through the lens of The Talented Mr. Ripley, considering Puglia after Bones and All, or reassessing New Zealand’s South Island through the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you’re already operating within this paradigm. This is for travellers who want to move beyond recognition (“I’ve been there”) to genuine cultural authority (“Let me tell you what Dubrovnik reveals beyond the King’s Landing façade”).
What Has Changed
Film tourism has matured from niche curiosity to substantial economic force. Cultural tourism—of which screen tourism forms a growing segment—is forecast to surge by nearly 15% annually over the next five years, potentially exceeding $17 billion by 2032. The World Travel Market’s data demonstrates that 73% of travellers now actively seek trips that take them “out of their comfort zone,” prioritising novel, memorable experiences over conventional itineraries.
The distinction that matters: most film tourism remains trapped in superficial execution. Coach tours to Highclere Castle. Group walks through Dubrovnik’s old town with a guide reciting Game of Thrones trivia. These experiences provide Instagram validation but limited cultural depth. They’re accessible to anyone with £50 and an afternoon.
Bespoke film tourism operates at a different register entirely. It concerns private access, curatorial intelligence, and experiences structured to deliver genuine understanding of how location shaped narrative—and how narrative has subsequently reshaped location.
Where the Opportunity Lies
Globally, though, certain corridors have emerged as particularly rich territory. New Zealand’s sustained tourism growth from the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit franchises established the template: visitor numbers to specific locations increased 40% following the films’ releases, and the effect has proven durable rather than ephemeral. More recently, productions have catalysed tourism to unexpected markets: The White Lotus drove renewed interest in Sicily’s luxury properties, whilst Succession‘s use of locations from Dundee to Tuscany created cultural pilgrimage routes for a particular demographic.
The emerging pattern favours long-form television over cinema. Series provide sustained narrative engagement with locations, allowing viewers to develop deeper psychological associations. A two-hour film shows you Santorini; a ten-episode series set there creates the illusion you’ve lived there.
Why This Matters Now
Because screen media has become the primary mechanism through which most people discover and conceptualise destinations. Film locations don’t simply benefit from tourism; they inherit narrative associations that reshape their cultural meaning. Dubrovnik is now Game of Thrones first, medieval trading republic second—at least for the generation currently commanding discretionary travel spending.
For the luxury traveller, this creates opportunity along two dimensions. First, cultural capital: you possess knowledge of locations before your peer group discovers them, establishing you as authority rather than follower. Second, experiential depth: properly structured film tourism provides layered understanding of place—the actual history, the cinematic interpretation, the tension between the two, and the economic transformation tourism itself has wrought.
Travel, fundamentally, enriches the fabric of your life in ways material acquisition cannot. It satisfies curiosity, builds conversational authority, and creates connection points with peers. The executive who’s explored Matera’s Sassi districts (backdrop to No Time to Die and The Passion of the Christ) before UNESCO heritage site mass tourism fully materialised possesses both aesthetic appreciation and temporal advantage. You become the authority others consult, the influence within your circle who recommends where to go next.
When to Commission This
Timing operates along two axes: production cycles and access windows. The optimal moment for film tourism often arrives 6-18 months after a significant production’s release, once locations have gained cultural recognition but before infrastructure has scaled to mass-market capacity. This window—when local providers recognise opportunity but haven’t yet industrialised the experience—offers maximum flexibility for private arrangements.
Seasonal considerations matter differently here than in conventional luxury travel. You’re not merely optimising for weather; you’re optimising for the atmospheric conditions that make locations cinematically resonant. The Scottish Highlands in November rather than July. Puglia’s olive groves at harvest. The Amalfi Coast in October when the summer crowds have departed but the light still holds.
How Xplora Luxe Structures These Experiences
This requires stating explicitly: we do not arrange standard film location tours. Those exist abundantly and serve their market. Our work begins where conventional film tourism ends—at the point where group itineraries become impossible and private access becomes essential.
The methodology: we start with narrative rather than geography. What is the story’s relationship to place? For Lord of the Rings, that means understanding how Tolkien’s literary landscapes mapped onto New Zealand’s actual topography, then experiencing the locations that most successfully embodied that translation. For The White Lotus, it means accessing Sicily’s decaying aristocratic properties that provided the series its thematic foundation—not as museum pieces but as lived spaces.
Where possible, we structure experiences that mirror the cinematic experience without replicating it. You’re not recreating scenes; you’re accessing the sensory and atmospheric elements that made those scenes cinematically powerful. Helicopter access to New Zealand’s Milford Sound region at the precise time of day when the light replicates the films’ colour grading. Private yacht access to Mamma Mia‘s Skopelos locations, timed to currents and light that make the Aegean appear as Aegean as cinema demanded.
The outcome is depth over documentation. Most film tourism produces photographs proving you were there. Properly structured film tourism produces understanding of how location and narrative interact—and ideally, introduces you to places you’d never have discovered without cinema as guide, but which reveal layers beyond their screen associations.
Investment and Expectations
Bespoke film itineraries begin at AED 5,000, though complex international programmes involving multiple locations and significant private access typically range from AED 15,000 to AED 50,000+ depending on scope, duration, and access requirements. This isn’t conventional tour pricing; you’re commissioning trip architecture that doesn’t exist in standard catalogues.
What this investment secures: complete itinerary design, private access arrangements where available, specialist guides with production knowledge, ground logistics, and crucially—discretion. Film tourism at this level often involves locations where production companies maintain ongoing relationships, or properties where owners prefer not to advertise their participation in screen tourism. Our role includes managing those sensitivities whilst securing your access.
The Bottom Line
Film and television have become primary drivers of how affluent travellers discover and conceptualise destinations. The 25-300% visitor uplift to filming locations isn’t temporary curiosity; it represents sustained cultural revaluation of place through narrative. Bespoke film tourism—properly executed with private access, curatorial intelligence, and atmospheric precision—delivers cultural authority and experiential depth unavailable through conventional itineraries. This is infrastructure for travellers who recognise that screens increasingly determine which places matter, and who want to engage those places before mass tourism commoditises the experience.
Sources:
World Travel Market, “WTM releases its Global Travel Report for 2024,” LATA: https://www.lata.travel/news/wtm-releases-its-global-travel-report-for-2024/
For enquiries regarding bespoke film location itineraries, contact Xplora Luxe directly. We do not publish standard packages; each programme is commissioned specifically for the client’s narrative interests and access requirements.
