This can be a movie, a TV show or a novel.

This kind of products common in the US thanks to Hollywood, I wondered how it is in Europe.

Thank you.

16 comments

  1. Amélie was a factor for some American people apparently.

    They never get Amélie’s Paris experience though, Paris is a great city to visit as a tourist (wouldn’t want to live there though) but Amélie is not meant to be taken first degree and the Paris described in the movie is half actual Paris, half fantasy.

  2. Somebody Feed Phil is on Netflix and in the latest season they do an episode on Croatia, showing traditional food, towns, etc. Really well made.

    Faraway is a German move about a Turkish lady who finds out her mother who passed away left her a house on an island in Croatia. Cute romantic comedy but pretty nice to see island life in Croatia

    Masterchef also has a Croatia series. They go to old towns, amazing locations, and the entire food cooked is local Croatian stuff. Cleaning fish, getting ink from squid, grilling octopus etc.

  3. Dark Hedges in Game of Thrones – very popular place to visit amongst younger generations

    Skellig Micheal is used in the final scene of Star Wars: The Last Jedi – same as above

    The Quiet Man filmed in the west of Ireland draws a lot of older American tourists to the region

  4. Something made in *another* country is driving thousands to visit. I’m referring to the pilgrimage to Santiago, the 3rd most important holy city in Christendom, where the remains of the apostle James the elder are buried.

    “The way”, 2010 film starring Martin Sheen, of Galician father, exploring the pilgrimage to Saint James, a.k.a. The Way of Saint James, or El Camino de Santiago. Many, many Americans come every year.

    Hape Kerkelin, a well known German celebrity (actor, comedian, showman…), did the pilgrimage, and touched him so much spiritually he wrote a book (“I’m off then: loosing and finding myself on the camino de Santiago”). He spoke of it on his show, became a best seller novel, and now we also have thousands of Germans visiting each year.

    ​

    This is not simple tourism. They just don’t come, eat, and go. There are requirements, They walk for hundreds of kilometers, making different stops. And the weather is not what people identify Spain as; it most likely will rain, how hard will depend on the hour and the day. Roads can be blocked by snow.

    And they come by the thousands. And many will repeat again. It helps that the Galician welcoming nature is nothing short of legendary, as the first recorded historical data (from the Greeks) point to this as the most important feature of the people, something that definitely was not said of other contemporary areas.

  5. There’s certain obvious ones like Downton Abbey and Harry Potter of course, but I always find it fascinating what media does and doesn’t get traction overseas.

    I believe the Germans love Rosamunde Pilcher, and there are lots of German adaptations of her books filmed in Cornwall, for instance.

    In the Before Times, I used to guide small-group minibus tours across the North York Moors to Whitby, and one stop on the way was Goathland, which does have a Harry Potter connection (the steam railway station was used as Hogsmeade in the first film), it’s mainly known in the UK as “Aidensfield” from the long-running series Heartbeat.

    What always surprised me was just how popular Heartbeat was in Scandinavia, with Swedish, Danish and Norwegian visitors all really enjoying visiting there as much as the Brits – in fact, for some of them it was the main point of going. While the Americans had generally never head of it, which I found odd because it’s *exactly* the kind of gentle police procedural/nostalgia/quaint old England/scenery porn that they absolutely lap up.

    But when we got to Whitby, the Americans all piped up to tell me how much it looked like Doc Martin, a show that has clearly been a much bigger hit in the US than in the UK. Not that it hasn’t been popular, but it’s sort of nice cosy Sunday afternoon telly rather than The Second Coming If It Were A TV Show. And is incidentally filmed about as far away from Whitby as it’s possible to get while still being in England.

    My home town of York is even weirder, because it’s become this big centre of Harry Potter tourism despite having pretty much no connection to the series at all. It’s got a pretty, narrow street called The Shambles with a couple of wobbly medieval houses on it, and on that street some years ago some people opened a Harry Potter merch shop called “The Shop That Must Not Be Named”. Which proved sufficiently big of a hit that several copycat shops all opened up on the same street shortly afterwards. Somehow it’s become “common knowledge” that the Shambles was the “original Diagon Alley”, and Visit York understandably don’t exactly fall over themselves to disabuse anyone of the notion, but JK Rowling has said she’d never been to York when she was writing it – *at most* the set designers for the film used some photos of the Shambles and other similar streets elsewhere as inspiration. Ironically, the one actual HP location in York is usually completely overlooked – the bit where Hagrid gives Harry his Hogwarts Express tickets was shot under the station clock, presumably as they were on the way off to Goathland to do Hogsmeade.

  7. Most of the foreigners I’ve met came to Russia because they loved the literature and the language. I personally can’t understand how you can read Dostoevsky or Tolstoy and think this country is a good place to be.

    Ig maybe some early Soviet feel-good films such as “Я шагаю по Москве” (Walking the streets of Moscow) could interest some, but I digress. We just don’t have any good media that could draw in tourists.

  8. “Outlander” is the current big draw for tourists to Scotland. It’s a series of racey historical novels written by an American lady called Diana Gabaldon. Apparently, she had never even visited Scotland at the time she was writing them. Anyway, it got made into a TV series on Amazon and the filming locations are a big draw apparently.

    The other one is the Glenfinnan Viaduct train bridge not far from Fort William. It’s well regarded as the bridge is curved, so you can see the engine as you look out the window. It’s Harry Potter of course.

  9. There are certainly several films that have contributed to the development of a certain tourism in Italy, for example I believe that Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita or Roman Holiday (a film I never tire of watching) have contributed a lot to the development of mass tourism in Rome (although Rome has always had elite tourism).

  10. Tom Cruise has filmed some scenes for MI at some of the most [spectacular places](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lsFs2615gw&ab_channel=ParamountPictures) in Norway in recent years.. Though funnily the filmplot apparently takes place in Austria.. So at least Norwegian nature make people visiting Austria .. Scenes from [Succesion](https://www.butterfield.com/get-inspired/travel-journal/succession-filming-locations-norway) has also been made in Norway..

    Otherwise… many international tv-channels.. like BBC and others have made documentaries from norway over the years regarding nature, people etc.. .. like when [Joanna Lumley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zWQjfAFrz8&t=913s&ab_channel=IlluminatedFilms) travelled in the land of the northern lights.. or Brian Cox filming scenes for BBC-documentary The Planets in Norway.. illustrating Venus ..

    Though maybe not that much viewed outside norway..(you can still find clips on youtube)…There’s ferry that travels along the coast of norway from Bergen to Kirkenes and back ([Hurtigruten](https://www.hurtigruten.no/destinasjoner/norge/)) .. Some years ago the national broadcaster (NRK) installed a TV-team on that boat/ferry.. and filmed it minute by minute (slow tv).. Where you could view it in real time.. Was quite a happening that summer.. [Here you can view](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz5mw64_A6A7kAFPq_la__63ue_AMVCfi)most of the trip.. It’s the kind of trip that is the dream of many foreigners coming to norway..

  11. I know some people have visited Iceland because of the Icelander Sagas and they wanted to see places like Þingvellir or because of elf stuff. Most notable Icelandic movies are crime movies so I don’t think they portray Iceland as all that desirable or like an ideal vacationing spot.

    EDIT: There have also been movies and shows shot in Iceland like Game of Thrones or Die Another Day that aroused some interest.

  12. The girl with the dragon tatoo (both books and movie) drew quite a lot of tourism to Stockholm for a while during the height of their popularity. You could go on a guided walking tour around Stockholm and see the different locations.

  14. [Inspector Montalbano](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Montalbano_(TV_series)) was shot in Southern Sicily and his popularity spilled over to the places where the TV series was shot, from his [iconic beach house](https://www.trekking.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/11/10/00/22649casa-montalbano_punta-secca_rg_sicilia-min.jpg?v=142961) to the [various baroque towns of Sicily](https://www.theworldofsicily.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Piazza-Duomo-a-Ragusa-1024×576.jpg) that serve as stage set. At least in Italy. But I’ve been told that Inspector Montalbano was broadcasted in a few European countries as well.

  15. On one not-so-big lake in the Berner Oberland, there is a little pier next to one village.

    A Korean drama series had a romantic scene there, now it’s overrun with Korean tourists. Or maybe it’s only a handful, but for the locals who had hardly any tourists beforehand, it’s huge.

  16. The Icelandic Saga is our most celebrated work of literature which does also contribute to many people coming here. In more recent history i’d attribute global news and even YouTube to a continued influx of tourists rather than any movie or show we have made.

    Though certain shows like Trapped have gained a noticeable popularity on the global stage.

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