Date :
29/04/2015
Scotland’s oldest film office, Edinburgh Film, which also covers productions filming in the Scottish Borders and East Lothian, reported a six per cent increase in projects last year to 361 in total, which included the TV series Outlander.
This provides tourism businesses with a great opportunity to take advantage of the latest visitor trend of Set-jetting - travelling to destinations seen in movies or on TV shows such as Inverary Castle for Downtown Abbey fans, Loch Etive which featured in the James Bond Skyfall film and Glenfinnan Viaduct for fans of Harry Potter.
Edinburgh Film has said it has dealt with more than 8,000 enquiries since inception in 1990 and that this has converted into more than 4,000 productions filming in the city and surrounding regions. It estimated the added economic impact from filming rose 53 per cent year on year to £4.6 million in 2014 alone.
Founder George Carlaw said: “Some enlightened people at the City and Regional Councils in 1990 saw the possibilities in film and television production and committed to an initial three year project.
“The twin aims were to develop the local production industry and to draw in location spend. Now we concentrate on the latter, which brings immediate economic benefits and helps the former.”
John Donnelly, chief executive of Marketing Edinburgh, said: “We know from VisitBritain’s research that 40 per cent of visitors choose to come to visit a destination after seeing it on screen.
“The success of films such as The Railway Man, Da Vinci Code, Filth and Sunshine on Leith, have meant images of our beautiful city have been seen by millions. As an advertising campaign to promote our city it has been priceless.”
Read more about how others are tapping into the Set-Jetting trend in our practical tools section on Tourism trends examples from Scotland and around the world