ABSTRACT
A representative international survey conducted in 2010 suggests that around 5 per cent of the world’s travellers are inspired by movies when selecting their holiday destination (Henry-Biabaud, 2015). The Irish National Tourism Development Authority commissioned a market research study in the same year, which revealed that 20 per cent of international travellers credit films as a source of information that had an impact on their decision to travel to Ireland (Millward Brown Lansdowne, 2010). Middle-earth-motivated tourism to New Zealand increased from 8 per cent in 2003 to 14 per cent in 2013 (Tourism New Zealand, 2003, 2014) while visitor numbers to the film set of Hobbiton rose from 11.500 in 2003 to 360.000 in 2015 (Tenbrock, 2005; Fletcher, 2015).
