Screen Tourism News: The Odyssey Effect & Festival Watch

From pre-release trail activation in Portland, Oregon, to an 80-year-old piece of screen heritage being saved on Scotland’s Isle of Mull, this week’s roundup takes in screen-tourism campaigns, new visitor experiences and destination activity from around the world. We also look at films emerging from the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Locarno Film Festival, more travel indicators around The Odyssey tourism effect beyond the filming locations, Harry Potter tourism pressures at Glenfinnan, and developments spanning India, China, creators and destination strategy.

An 80-year-old film is still moving visitors on Mull

A red telephone box at Carsaig on the Isle of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland, has become a reminder of the longevity of screen tourism and the power of classic-film fandom to help preserve pieces of screen heritage. The phone box, long part of tourist trails in the area, appeared in Powell and Pressburger’s 1945 film I Know Where I’m Going! and is now a key part of the UK’s screen heritage. Following plans by telecoms company BT to remove it, a successful appeal was lodged with Argyll and Bute Council to keep the phone box in place.

→ Worth noting: Screen tourism doesn’t necessarily belong to recent films and blockbusters and can still draw people decades after release. When filming locations become heritage assets in their own right, fans who see themselves as custodians can galvanise support when they come under threat. This was recognised by council leader Jim Lynch, who described the Carsaig phone box as an example of the “power of film”, noting that a memorable location can continue to inspire people to visit and spend time in communities “sometimes decades after the cameras stopped rolling.”

The Odyssey Watch

New post-release travel data is providing useful numbers behind The Odyssey tourism effect extending beyond the filming locations. CheapOair reports US flight searches to Athens up 153% and bookings up 151% following the film’s 17 July release. Searches for Santorini rose 265%, Kos 258%, Mykonos 230% and Crete 197%. Unforgettable Greece has separately reported bookings up 76% year-on-year, while easyJet Holidays has recorded an 18% week-on-week increase for Greece in early August, including a 28% rise for Corfu, whilst Sicily was up 8%.

There are signs of a wider mythology-led effect benefiting locations away from sites connected to the film. Google search data analysed by Nibble found interest in travelling to Troy jumped 3,421% after The Odyssey opened, and “flights to Troy” rose 966%.

The Troy Museum in Turkiye is also capitalising on renewed interest, promoting its reconstructed ancient vessel as part of an Odyssey-timed push. GetYourGuide is actively directing Odyssey-inspired travellers to Troy, where the Trojan War provides the starting point for Odysseus’s journey in the Greek myth, despite Nolan actually recreating Troy for the film in Morocco. Luxury operator Pelorus has launched an €88,000-per-person Odyssey-inspired Türkiye and Italy itinerary that includes the archaeological site of Troy.

→ Worth watching: The booking figures are early signals rather than proof of causation, but the Troy activity is particularly interesting: The Odyssey is beginning to sell travel to places connected to the original story as well as the film’s shooting locations.

Dear You sends visitors to China’s Chaoshan region

Released in China on 30 April, the low-budget, Teochew-language Dear You has become one of the country’s surprise hits of 2026, taking nearly RMB2 billion (US$296 million) domestically by late July before expanding into international markets.

Channel NewsAsia reported in July that the film was also driving visitors to Chaoshan in Guangdong, where much of it was shot. China Express Travel reported enquiries for Chaoshan tours up around 30%, while Trip.com recorded flight bookings from Singapore to Jieyang Chaoshan International Airport up 23% year-on-year between 18 June and 19 July.

Tours are now incorporating filming locations across Shantou, Chaozhou and Jieyang. At the height of interest, one resident reported seeing as many as 18 tour buses arriving a day.

Netflix and India launch Tourism hub

India’s Ministry of Tourism and Netflix announced As Seen on Netflix on 5 August, a first-of-its-kind section that will feature on the Incredible India website. The site will help audiences discover the real locations, cultural traditions and experiences featured across Netflix India’s films and series. The hub brings together more than 100 filming locations from over 200 Netflix Indian originals, effectively turning a decade of productions into a screen-tourism discovery tool.

The launch builds on a partnership first announced in September 2025, which has also included ten Incredible India promotional films. It follows similar tourism collaborations from Netflix in markets including Brazil, France, Spain, South Korea and Thailand.

Netflix has been producing content in India since 2016, filming across more than 100 towns and cities in 23 states. India recorded its highest-ever six months of Netflix viewing in the first half of 2026.

Southern New Mexico turns production locations into a visitor trail

Visit Las Cruces and Film Las Cruces have launched a self-guided tour of filming locations across Las Cruces and Doña Ana County in New Mexico, USA. The trail takes visitors to recognisable locations used across film and television productions in southern New Mexico, stretching from downtown Las Cruces and the surrounding desert to White Sands National Park and Spaceport America. Alongside the downloadable self-guided tour, Southwest Expeditions will also offer guided tours of the film locations.

The New Mexico Film Office’s FY2026 economic impact report reveals that more than one in five film productions in New Mexico were filmed in the area, with 13 of the state’s 63 productions choosing Las Cruces and Doña Ana County. Film productions also generated $41.5 million in local spending during the 2026 financial year.

→ Worth noting: the trail confirms that southern New Mexico’s concentration of productions and recognisable landscapes can be packaged as a visitor experience in its own right.

Visit West Launches Starring Bristol

A promotional film called Starring Bristol has been launched from Visit West, the Local Visitor Economy Partnership (LVEP) for the West of England, highlighting a selection of e blockbuster productions filmed in the city. At just over 4 minutes, the short film follows three couples as they explore locations connected to the world of film and TV, including Wolf Hall, The Forsytes , Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death, The Outlaws, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, Skins and Stan & Ollie.

To help visitors and locals to ‘step onto set and find your favourite scene’, Visit West has also partnered with SetJetters and their movie scene location app to promote over 50 scenes shot across the West of England, including Bridgerton, Wonka, Doctor Who and The Outlaws.

→ The opportunity: The addition of SetJetters takes their initiative one step further, connecting the promotional video push, with more than 50 individual scenes visitors can actually seek out across the region.

New VisitBritain Research Measures Screen-tourism Influence

New VisitBritain research published in July, based on questions included in the 2025 Nation Brands Index, found 53% of recent visitors to Britain took part in at least one film or TV-related activity, while around half said UK-set screen content strongly influenced their decision to visit. Among potential visitors, 75% expressed interest in a film or TV-related activity on a future trip, with screen influence particularly strong among younger travellers and long-haul markets including China, India and Saudi Arabia.

Portland Creates Trail Ahead of Wildwood

Portland has launched Follow the Crows, a citywide public-art trail tied to LAIKA’s upcoming stop-motion fantasy Wildwood, more than two months before the film reaches North American cinemas on 23 October.

Around 30 artist-designed crow sculptures have appeared across the city, supported by a self-guided trail that will run through to the film’s release window.

→ Worth noting: The UK has led the way with public-art trails tied to much-loved film and screen IP, including Paddington, Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep. In Wildwood’s case, that familiar format is also being used to build awareness ahead of the release of a major film from a locally based production company.

Harry Potter tourism puts Glenfinnan under pressure

The Times reported on 11 August that more than 660,000 people a year are now visiting Glenfinnan, population around 150, with residents raising concerns over traffic, litter and pressure on local infrastructure as fans head to the viaduct used by the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter films. The National Trust for Scotland is planning around £6 million of investment in visitor facilities and measures to manage traffic. Annual visitors have risen from 187,437 in 2015 to around 660,000 in 2025, an increase of more than 250% in a decade, showing how the impact of a screen location can continue growing long after a film series ends.

Also on the screen-tourism radar…

Calke Abbey in Derbyshire launched a new screen-locations experience on 5 August, allowing visitors to explore locations used for Netflix film Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, alongside Outlander. Peaky Blinders filmed at the National Trust property from mid-November to early December 2024, using the house, stableyards and surrounding parkland. The new offer includes a downloadable walking trail, behind-the-scenes interpretation and the chance to recreate locations including Tommy Shelby’s walk through the stableyard, with a further behind-the-scenes house tour planned for October.

Thailand’s Tourism Authority and Major Cineplex launched Thai Thai, Travel by the Movies in July, encouraging cinemagoers to visit Thai filming locations, post photographs and travel experiences on social media, and enter to win cinema tickets and hotel stays. Running until 20 September, the campaign is particularly focused on using film to encourage travel to Thailand’s secondary cities.

Meanwhile, Tourism Ireland is taking a portfolio approach across several 2026 productions. Its screen-tourism activity includes behind-the-scenes content for 500 Miles, filmed in Wicklow, Kerry and Dublin, and cast and crew material around Power Ballad. It has also used How to Get to Heaven from Belfast to connect audiences with locations including Belfast, Derry-Londonderry, Donegal and Dublin.

Festival Watch: Edinburgh

Several films screened at EIFF last week have locations set to put them on the screen-tourism radar. Borges and Me, which had its world premiere on 15 August, recreates Jay Parini’s 1971 road trip with Jorge Luis Borges through the Scottish Highlands, including Loch Ness. Filmed across 61 Scottish locations from September to November 2024, the journey and landscape are central to the story, with The Guardian describing it as a “literary odyssey through the Highlands”.

Festival opener The Incomer uses Caithness and the northern Highlands to create its fictional remote Scottish island, with Screen Daily noting that the film “makes the most of its remote Scottish island setting”. It is due to be released in UK and Irish cinemas on 4 September. Meanwhile, The Education of Jane Cumming received its UK premiere on 17 August and is both set and filmed in Edinburgh, offering a 19th-century take on the city ahead of its UK and Ireland cinema release in early 2027. Director Sophie Heldman has described the 1810 story as a “time capsule” into Scottish society of the period and was determined to shoot the film in Scotland.

Festival Watch: Latin America At Locarno

Three Latin American films stood out at Locarno, where the locations used were a strong feature of the films and story. Colombian director Manuel Ponce de León’s In All My Journeys I Am Returning had its world premiere on 10 August, following a 19th-century journey along Colombia’s Magdalena River. A river boat recreated for filming has since been donated to the Museo del Río Magdalena in Honda, becoming a permanent public exhibit. The production received support from the Colombian Film Development Fund (FDC), administered by Proimágenes Colombia, which also operates the Colombia Film Commission.

Brazilian film A Margem do Rio, shot in Recife, won the Special Jury Prize at Locarno, with Recife’s mangroves central to the story. Folha de S.Paulo describes the film as taking its characters on “a journey through the mangrove marked by eroticism, violence and self-discovery”. The film received R$180,000 towards completion from Pernambuco’s state audiovisual fund, Funcultura, alongside support from ANCINE, Brazil’s national film agency, through the federal Audiovisual Sector Fund (FSA).

Uruguay was meanwhile the country focus of Locarno Pro’s First Look, with national audiovisual agency ACAU supporting the country’s presence and six films in post-production. Among them, Lorenzo Tocco’s El Surubí filmed around 10 days of its 22–24-day shoot in Rosario, in Uruguay’s Colonia Department, with producer Pancho Magnou saying the city was chosen for its aesthetic characteristics and logistical conditions to become the film’s fictional declining industrial town attempting to reinvent itself through mystical tourism. Rosario’s municipality supported the production locally, while local actors, extras and suppliers were also brought into the shoot.

Destination Desk

Screen Tasmania is facing significant staffing cuts under a state government restructure, with three staff reported to be departing the agency through redundancies and the end of a contract. The cuts come as Screen Tasmania is being brought into closer alignment with Tourism Tasmania, with industry figures pointing to productions such as Deadloch as examples of how screen production can promote the state internationally while generating work for local crews, hospitality and other businesses.

At Brazil’s Gramado Film Market, held 13–15 August, the first International Meeting of Cities brought public-sector representatives together to discuss audiovisual production, tourism and the creative economy. Also in Brazil, Itapetininga, a city in São Paulo state, established its film commission in 2025 and is now actively pitching itself for productions, including at the São Paulo State Film Commission roadshow in June, backed by work mapping locations, crews, suppliers and accommodation.

In Nigeria, the Rivers International Film Festival announced this month that its fourth edition will move to Bonny Island from 22–25 October, under the theme Film Tourism: A Pathway to Economic Development.

Creators Becoming Travel Distribution Channels

A Financial Times report published 15 August looks at the growing influence of creators on where audiences travel, including Expedia’s partnership with livestreamer IShowSpeed, whose US tour produced spikes in travel searches for destinations he visited, including South Dakota, Wyoming and New Mexico. The FT piece also highlights Virgin Voyages working with around 1,000 TikTok creators, showing how creator marketing is moving well beyond one-off influencer partnerships.

For destination marketers, creators increasingly come on board not just as promotional partners but as distribution channels for destinations, capable of putting relatively unfamiliar places in front of huge audiences. Beautiful Destinations estimates that some leading brands are now allocating up to 50% of their marketing budgets to social media and creator-led content, according to research cited by the FT.

AND FINALLY…

After K-pop and K-drama, South Korea looks to K-art

The Korea Tourism Organization is working with the Galleries Association of Korea to develop K-art tourism, linking galleries, exhibitions and international travel promotion and planning familiarisation activity for overseas luxury-tourism networks.

Spain gets an eclipse-tourism surge

Spain’s 12 August total solar eclipse was forecast to generate 446,700 additional visitors and €342.19 million in extra tourism spending, according to an economic-impact study published by the Spanish government on 21 July. The country has established an interministerial commission to manage a rare run of three major eclipses between 2026 and 2028.