Have you ever watched a movie and thought, you know what i would love to travel there? Although you will be hard fetched to find a flight to ‘Hogwarts’ depicted in the Harry Potter movies, you will certainly be able to catch a flight to Madagascar after watching Madagascar – Escape 2 Africa. Movies and TV shows always do a wonderful job of making the most hospitable places on earth look wonderful as recently shown in the BBC’s new wildlife documentary, Frozen Planet which was filmed in the Arctic and Antarctic.
When you saw the Lion King for the first time did it make you want to jump on the first plane to Africa and head out on a Kenya safari to see the wildlife in the movie in real life? Holiday makers unsure of where to travel abroad can often be persuaded by television shows or movies as they depict destinations one cannot comprehend and certainly not visualise. Since the BBC aired Frozen Planet to over 16 million viewers more and more people have shown an interest in making the trip out to both the Arctic and Antarctic.
Many movies that we have forgotten about seem to reappear on our screens over Christmas giving us a good idea of the sort of destination we would like to visit next year whether that’s a Namibia safari after watching the movie ‘Africa United’ or whether it’s a trip to Antarctica after watching the adorable penguins strut their stuff in Happy Feet. Movie tourism is big business in many parts of the world and can even spark of a general interest in an activity depicted from a movie. Take King Kong for example, more and more people wanted to challenge themselves to climb a mountain, even though he only climbs the Empire State Building in the movie. People look to the most accessible mountain and for many to climb Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is not just the challenge of a lifetime but it’s an experience they may never get to do again.
Movie tourism is only set to get bigger and bigger with filming locations now becoming much more widespread and diverse from the Sahara desert to the Himalayan Mountains. This diversity opens up the world to more people, giving them and opportunity and a reason to see what’s happening on the other side of the globe.