2.

0 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Film Tourism
Rewtrakunphaiboon (2009) states that film tourism (or film-induced tourism) is a relatively new form
of cultural tourism. Cultural tourism aims to educate tourists about other ways of life by and how a
country represents itself to visitors by cultural factors such as music, food, hospitality, architecture,
crafts, religion and entertainment (Tanja, 2012). Films are part of the entertainment industry and
an expression of culture, art, local traditions which links to the cultural branch of tourism.
Another aspect of cultural tourism is the search and visitation of cultural and heritage sites.
This can be compared to the search that film tourists take to find signs and visual icons that remind
them of a place or scene from a specific movie (Rewtrakunphaiboon, 2009; Kim & Richardson, 2003;
Tanja, 2012).
A significant number of existing studies have found evidence that fictional films can influence tourist
numbers to a destination in a positive way. Niziol (2015) states that there has been a significant
increase of visitors travelling specifically to see destination’s portrayed in a films over the last 20 years.
The film ‘Braveheart’ in particular appeared frequently in contemporary literature. The William
Wallace Monument in Scotland that was a setting in the film saw a visitation increase of 300% annually
after the film’s release (Rewtrakunphaiboon, 2009; Niziol, 2015). Other films that have generated
a notable increase in visitor numbers include the Harry Potter films which had a 50% increase in
visitation to all the movie’s film locations in the UK and the Lord of the Rings trilogy that brought
approximately NZ $32.8 million in tourist spending to New Zealand in 2004 (Crow, 2010; Spears et al.
2013; Niziol, 2015). Rewtrakunphaiboon (2009) discusses how tourism organisations can use films to
their advantage, for example, on the NZ tourism website New Zealand is promoted as ‘Home of
Middle Earth’ to potential visitors. A number of articles discussed the positive and/or negative effects
that films can have on a destination. For example, Spears et al. (2013) and Niziol (2015) mentioned
benefits being economic impacts, destination awareness and higher tourist visitation. In comparison,
Taylor (2017) proved that higher tourist visitation generated by films can have a negative effect on a
destination with the example of the film, The Beach. The large increase of tourism numbers visiting
the Phi Phi Islands after viewing the film has led to overcrowded beaches, commodification,
environmental degradation and negative societal impacts in Thailand. (Taylor, 2017). In comparison,
a film can also create either a positive or negative of the destination itself before visitation, depending
on the way the destination is portrayed and on which aspects were highlighted (Araujo, 2012).

2.2 Destination Image Theory

Destination image is a key component of a tourist's decision-making process (Crow, 2010). Tasci et al.
(2007) defined destination image as ‘an interactive system of thoughts, opinions, feelings,
visualisations and intentions toward a destination’ (Tasci, Gartner & Cavusgil, 2007, p. 200). Vagionis
and Maria (2011), explained further that the influence of an image can be voluntary, involuntary,
accidental, conscious or unconscious. The type of influence of an image depends considerably
on its source and whether it is organic or induced (Cardoso, Estevao, Fernandes & Alves,
2017).

The separation of image formation into either organic or induced has been a popular topic in
contemporary tourism literature (Kim & Richardson, 2003; Hudson, Wang & Gil, 2011; Cardoso et al.
2017). According to Kim and Richardson (2003) and Cardoso et al. (2017), organic images are
formed from sources that do not directly link with tourism interests, such as movies and newspaper
reports, whereas induced images emerge from the conscious effort of tourism organisations to
develop and market their destinations. Kim and Richardson (2003) believed that by watching films,
contemporary tourists organic images of a place can be shaped without concern of perceived bias.
Moreover, Gartner (1993) formed five different categories of sources of information in mass media
with TV shows, news and films being classified as autonomous rather than organic. The organic images
outlined by Gartner (1993) included the sharing of knowledge and experiences obtained from friends
and family members.

As tourism organisations become more aware of the effect of films on tourism image formation, the
use of a blockbuster film as a tourism marketing scheme has gained popularity (Hudson, Wang & Gil.
2011). Films such as Australia had tourism officials investing millions of dollars to promote Australia
by including a branding campaign which ran for several months in international markets to coincide
with the release and global marketing of the movie. As there was a conscious effort and inclusion of
tourism Australia, this film creates an induced rather than an organic image to consumers (Hudson,
Wang & Gil, 2011; Spears, Josiam, Kinley & Pookulangara, 2013).

Another significant area of discussion in contemporary tourism literature is Push and Pull theory
(Rewtrakunphaiboon, 2009; Niziol, 2015). Correia, Kozak and Ferradeira (2013) relate push
motivations to internal desires and emotions such as social interaction or leisure, whereas pull
motivations are linked to external aspects such as climate, landscape and hospitality (Jonsson and
Devonish, 2008). Furthermore, Carvalho, Vieira and Sousa (2014) stated that film tourists can be
motivated by three distinct pull factors, which were referred to as the 3 P’s: place, personality and
performance. Hudson, Wang & Gil (2011) elaborated on this by describing place as location, attributes,
landscape and scenery; personality as cast, characters and celebrity; performance as plot, theme and
genre. Similarly, Rewtrakunphaiboon (2009) mentioned that films can induce viewers to travel by
both physical properties such as scenery and landscape along with intangible properties that shape
the audiences emotions and attitudes towards a place such as storylines, events and actors. Moreover,
Kim and Richardson (2003) and Zeng et al. (2015) stated that destination images consist of both
cognitive and affective components. The former focuses predominately on the evaluation of the
known physical attributes of a destination, whereas the latter refers to the emotional responses to
place and the set of motives that lead to the selection of a specific destination (Kim and Richardson,
2003; Vagionis & Maria, 2011; Zeng, 2015;).

2.3 Influence of media on destination image formation

The influence of media on destination image formation is a reasonably new topic. Few empirical
studies have been done on this phenomenon (Mercille, 2005). This is due to the topic being a relatively
new phenomenon that needs further study, as there is a lack of knowledge and understanding of the
benefits specific media has had on tourism (Kim & Richardson, 2003; Rewtrakunphaiboon, 2009;
Spears et al. 2013).

There have been two distinct articles that discussed a narrow area of this topic that found similar
results. Firstly, Mercille (2005) studied how media portrayed Tibet in movies, guidebooks and
magazines by collecting data from tourists in Lhasa, Tibet. The research found that the image of Tibet
for tourists was largely formed by the film Seven Years in Tibet (Annaud, 1997) and that media
portrayed a specific image of Tibet through the influence of selective representation. Tourist’s image
of Tibet before actual visitation was of a beautiful and mountainous environment. However, they were
surprised on visiting that Tibet was developed and modernised as these images were absent in the
representation of Tibet portrayed by the media (Mercille, 2005; Muhoho-Mini & Berendien, 2017).

Ramasubramanian (2005) also looked into how media can portray a country and culture- in this case,
how western films portrayed Indian culture. A scene- level content analysis of films was completed
that led to a discussion about cultural stereotypes and media portraying a certain culture in a narrow
way. Ramasubramanian (2005) explained that media creators in the west should consider alternative
cultural portrayals that are a less stereotypical representation of specific cultures. Similarly, an
article by Mitra (1999) investigated about the power media has to influence a viewer’s perception of
a place. The results indicated that a country, such as India, can be perceived in a specific way in film
that clashes with what is seen in ‘reality’.