(Paris) The restaurant of the boyfriend ofEmily in Paristhe Hogwarts school of Harry Potter near London, the capital of the Kingdom of the Seven Kingdoms of Game Of Thrones in Dubrovnik: tourism to series filming locations has grown exponentially in recent years.
Posted yesterday at 12:47 p.m.
A phenomenon that goes hand in hand with the proliferation of broadcasts on audiovisual platforms.
In Paris, Julia Kabalkin, 15, has her eyes wide open in front of the Terra Nova restaurant in the 5e district, filming location of the series Emily in Paris. Arrived the same morning from Chicago, she discovers the French capital for the first time and has just taken a picture of herself in front of the door of the building where the heroine of her favorite series lives.
“I surprised him with this trick. She did not know, ”explains to AFP her grandmother, Robin Golden who accompanies her and has not seen the internationally successful series telling the adventures of a young American in Paris.
For a year, Fabien Buonavia has been offering this tour in the footsteps of Emily, lasting two to three hours, punctuated with historical anecdotes about Paris, “because if it’s just seeing the filming locations, they can do it themselves,” he said. The young man had this idea because he himself had “gone around Sex and the City At New York “.
According to a study by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) conducted with the Netflix platform, the number of travelers choosing destinations linked to films and television shows doubled in the five years before the pandemic, reaching almost of 80 million people in 2019.
The film Crocodile Dundee increased tourist visas to Australia by 40% between 1984 and 1989, says the report published in October. Between 2000 and 2006, the trilogy of Lord of the Rings increased annual visits to New Zealand by 40%. And from 2011 to 2013, the series Harry Potter increased the number of visitors to filming sites by 230%, injecting an additional £9million into Northumberland County’s economy.
Downside
Photo Dmitry Kostyukov, The New York Times archive
The city of Dubrovnik, Croatia, was overwhelmed by fans of Game Of Thrones.
In recent years, cheaper travel combined with the proliferation of platforms (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, etc.) giving global visibility to series and films have amplified the phenomenon.
In Paris, in addition to the two Americans, Fabien Buonavia had that day in his group, two other Americans, an Australian and two Koreans. One of them, Choonae Kim, 47, in transit between Cuba and Seoul chose to stop in Paris rather than London “for the tour Emily in Paris “. Tourist guide, she could be inspired by it back home.
In London, the “Harry Potter” magic still works. Delphine Dugué, 39, made a special trip to the studios located 1:30 a.m. from the English capital during the Ascension weekend, for the 10th birthday of her son Valentin. A gift postponed for two years due to a pandemic.
“He is a fan. Between nine and ten years old, he read all the books and then he watched the movies,” she told AFP, satisfied with the visit: “Gringotts bank, you feel like inside, we’re in the movie! “.
Her companion Steven and her 8-year-old daughter Anna were not so lucky, the fares (94 pounds per ticket, or $147) being too high, so they stayed in London.
This is the first time that Delphine Dugué has done audiovisual tourism. “Although, last summer in the Camargue, we waited in front of the gate of the series Here it all starts to see the actors,” she acknowledges.
Faced with the success of audiovisual tourism, the UNWTO warns against the other side of the coin, excessive crowds. Like in Maya Bay in Thailand, a destination popularized by the film The beach which had to close for a while to protect its ecosystem. Or like in Dubrovnik, Croatia, overwhelmed by fans of Game Of Thrones reenacting the “walk of shame” through the narrow streets of the city.