Spain Launches Screen Tourism Framework to Support Regional Destinations

Spain Film Commission has launched a new national framework to help destinations transform filming locations into sustainable, high-impact tourism experiences. Announced at the San Sebastián Film Festival, the initiative includes practical toolkits, breakdown of four pilot studies and a detailed methodology, all falling under the Spain Screen Grand Tour initiative, all financed by NextGenerationEU funds. The announcement and new resources for their regions positions Spain, already one of the world’s top tourism markets, as a rising contender in the fast-growing sector of film and screen tourism, and a country working hard to take a slice of this growing market.

Announcing the scheme at Spain’s largest film festival also signalled the Commission’s intent to reach both a domestic industry audience and the international professionals present. Speaking at the festival, Juan Manuel Guimeráns, president of Spain Film Commission, said: “Spain is home to one of the world’s leading tourism industries and a globally competitive audiovisual sector. Bringing these two forces together was a natural step toward redefining how audiences experience our country.”

While not yet on the scale of the US, UK or New Zealand, Spain is proving that structured investment and support can help stimulate if not boost a country’s screen tourism industry effects on a national and regional level. By piloting across four types of destinations; coastal, urban, rural and natural destinations, creating a standardised framework, and linking screen tourism directly to sustainability and diversification goals, Spain offers a model for other film commissions and tourism boards worldwide to model their own efforts on. The lessons for film commissions, destination marketers and locations are clear: pilots generate hard evidence of what works, frameworks turn isolated projects into repeatable best practices, and diversification allows regions beyond the obvious hotspots to boost tourism. Whilst each country and location is different, these efforts from Spain Film Commission, showcase the building blocks, as well as commitment – this is built on long term commitment from various bodies – for stimulating and unlocking the full potential of film and TV tourism. 

Background and Funding for Spain’s Film Tourism Strategy

In an important initiative for the screen tourism industry, Juan Manuel Guimeráns, president of Spain Film Commission, announced the next stage in their strategy to generate economic and cultural impact in their regions through connecting visitors with the real settings of iconic audiovisual productions. The project and resources created are designed to give any tourism agent in Spain a framework to create and launch their own screen tourism initiatives, and includes detailed methodology and practical guides through three toolkits now available online. 

This initiative is funded by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism – State Secretariat for Tourism (SETUR), and is part of a wider commitment to transforming Spain’s audiovisual heritage into sustainable tourist experiences. It also forms part of the Spain Screen Grand Tour programme and platform, which includes a dedicated platform to help people rediscover Spain through its film and TV heritage. These efforts are also built on long-term commitment from multiple bodies to help regions design and implement their own screen tourism initiatives.

More broadly, this new project including the pilots undertaken sits within the Experiencias Programme of the Tourism Ministry, financed with funds from the NextGenerationEU programme, which aims to modernise and sustain the competitiveness of the tourist industry.

Spanish Film Commission Toolkit

The new screen tourism project was developed after four pilot schemes across the country, with the toolkits drawing directly on their lessons to create a national framework. Each pilot offered a distinct model, built on well-known film and TV productions, as well as one linked to a series still in development.

Working with public institutions, tourism professionals and audiovisual industry players, Spain Film Commission combined these findings with wider research and best practices to develop three toolkits offering a step-by-step method to transform filming locations into innovative, sustainable tourism offerings. Two of the three resources are now available, covering the whole lifecycle of a screen tourism campaign – from groundwork during pre-production and production through to post-production, where the longer-term opportunities lie. The first toolkit introduces the benefits of screen tourism and the fundamentals to consider, while the second is a practical, hands-on guide with a checklist covering the three stages from pre-production to release and beyond.

A Production-Style Approach

The methodology mirrors the familiar cycle of film production – pre-production, production and post-production. For those immersed in the workings of the film industry some of the toolkits will be explaining things they already know, but for newcomers to this world it helpfully breaks down each of the key milestones in a film or TV series, and then what the destinations and those marketing them should be thinking alongside each step. 

The first stage lays the groundwork: gaining commitment from destinations, selecting the film or series to anchor the project, defining the territory, and mapping its cultural and tourism assets. It also emphasises collaboration with local businesses, cultural groups and tourism agents so that the experience is embedded in the community from the outset.

In the production phase, the experience is designed, prototyped and tested before being rolled out. This includes setting up a governance model, trialling the concept with professionals and sample audiences, and iterating to improve quality and sustainability. The process ensures that screen tourism products are not only creatively compelling but also operationally viable, with clear ownership and local buy-in.

Finally, in the post-production stage, experiences are launched to market and supported with dedicated marketing strategies. Continuous evaluation is built in to keep them relevant, financially sustainable and adaptable over time. By mirroring the lifecycle of a film, the methodology provides an intuitive guide for destinations, ensuring that the legacy of productions extends far beyond their release date.

Spain’s Four Film Tourism Pilots

In Formentera in the Balearic Islands, the pilot centred on building low-season travel through the scenery and story featured in romantic drama Sex and Lucía (2001), including the Es Cap de Barbaria Lighthouse. In Burgos, the classic spaghetti western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) includes the Sad Hill Cemetery, since restored by volunteers, and now one the centrepiece of tourism experiences tied to the film’s mythic status. In the north-west of the country, in Galicia, the focus was on the 2018 TV series Fariña (Cocaine Coast), first aired on Antena 3 and later streamed in that same year to international audiences on Netflix, itself based on Nacho Carretero’s investigative book. The final pilot, in Seville, took a different approach, exploring how to design and engage tourism experiences during the early stages of a production still in development.

The Experiencias Programme: Innovation in Tourism

The Experiencias Programme was set up to modernise and increase the competitiveness of Spain’s tourism industry. Screen tourism is one of its innovative strands, supported by the groundwork of the Spain Film Commission and the Spain Screen Grand Tour platform. The programme focuses on diversifying Spain’s tourism offer, easing pressure on traditional hotspots by drawing visitors to inland and lesser-known areas, and protecting natural, historical and cultural heritage. It also prioritises sustainability across environmental, social and economic dimensions, alongside digital transformation, stronger governance through collaboration, and resilience planning to help destinations and businesses prepare for future crises.

The programme is financed by NextGenerationEU, the EU’s temporary recovery instrument created in response to the COVID-19 crisis, and implemented in Spain through the national Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. Although launched as a COVID recovery tool, the fund remains very much in play, with complementary EU investment agreements signed in July 2025 that saw the European Investment Bank commit €640 million to projects supporting urban development and sustainable tourism, including €230 million channelled through private partners A&G and Urbania Alpha (AEXX Capital brand). While these specific EIB funds are not directly tied to screen tourism, continued EU investment in sustainable tourism is likely to benefit Spain Film Commission’s work under the Experiencias Programme.

Spain’s Tourism Sector in Context

This ongoing commitment to the crossover between the screen and tourism industries places Spain among the European countries competing for the lucrative sector of tourism fuelled by film and TV. Already one of the world’s most popular destinations, Spain has a head start. INE (National Statistics Institute) figures show that 22.3 million tourists travelled to Spain in July and August 2025, compared with 21.8 million in the same period of 2024. The work of the Commission and the Experiencias Programme aims to broaden this appeal further by promoting lesser-known areas and off-season travel.

Spain Screen Grand Tour: National Film Tourism Initiative

The Spain Screen Grand Tour was created to support the Spanish Film Commission’s screen tourism ambitions and to provide more joined-up support for a sector first highlighted in 2006, when a book on Andalucía first examined the impact of on-screen visuals on tourism within a Spanish context. In recent years this ambition to position Spain’s film locations to tourists has begun to take further shape, with the launch of Fitur Screen in 2017, an industry event dedicated to screen tourism held alongside the wider Fitur tourism fair, and more recently the creation of the Spain Screen Grand Tour platform. 

The Spain Screen Grand Tour is a structured national initiative that combines a public-facing platform for tourists with a framework to link and support regional players, both established and emerging, through knowledge-sharing and a growing national network. In this way, it formalises screen tourism as part of Spain’s wider tourism strategy rather than leaving it to one-off local campaigns.

Falling within the Experiencias Turismo España programme, and financed by the European Union – NextGenerationEU and the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, the Spain Screen Grand Tour project sets out to package filming locations into market-ready experiences by linking Spain’s vast audiovisual heritage with gastronomy, culture and local identity. Through its platform and the Commission’s work behind the scenes, the project aims to establish a standardised process nationwide, giving regions – including lesser-known areas – the tools to benefit over time. As Spain Film Commission explained when launching the project, the goal is to “close the virtuous circle” of filming, ensuring that the visibility productions bring lasts well beyond their release window and translates into tourism, local economic impact and ultimately, more filming in Spain. With an estimated 80 million travellers worldwide choosing destinations based on films and series, and around 30% of a production’s budget staying in the shooting location, the potential for Spain’s regions is significant.

Key Takeaways for Film Commissions and Destinations

Pilots as a way of testing  – Spain demonstrates that pilot projects, when spread across different destination types, are not just promotional exercises but testing grounds that generate hard evidence for what works. That makes the strategy credible to both industry and funders.

Diversification is the differentiator – By deliberately piloting coastal, urban, rural and natural landscapes, Spain has shown that screen tourism is not limited to blockbusters or iconic or well known locations. It can be used to spread demand, tackle the problems around seasonality, and build a tourism identity in places that rarely get the spotlight.

Thematic breadth matters – The pilots didn’t just test different geographies; they also tested different kinds of screen stories. From a domestic cult film (Sex and Lucía), to an international classic (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), a streaming crossover hit (Fariña), and even a production still in development (Seville), Spain demonstrated how destinations can anchor tourism efforts around screen content at very different stages and with different audience profiles. The lesson is not to copy Spain’s choices, but to use the same approach to identify a good range of themes and titles distinctive and suitable to your region.

Frameworks Are Important – Toolkits and standardised methodologies take screen tourism out of the realm of one-off, reactive projects, and support localised marketing efforts that may not have the resources or time to do their own deep dives and training in this area and also embed them into a knowledge bank of information that they can easily adapt. This gives continuity, more professionalism in their approach, hopefully better return on investment, and long-term resilience in this area.

Closing the loop – Spain is not treating screen tourism as a side show but as an integral part of a circular economy: production spends money in the area, increases visibility of the area and sites, increases visitor flow, leads to more reinvestment, and attracts more productions.

Language is no barrier – Perhaps the most significant insight: Spain proves screen tourism leadership is not confined to English-speaking markets which often steal the limelight, partly because of the size of that market and film industry. Local productions, legacies of international shoots, and global streaming hits can all anchor powerful visitor experiences. Also from a European perspective, and those closely following screen tourism developments, Spain is definitely a country and market to keep watching and how the market and efforts continue to mature and develop. 

Spain shows how a mature tourism market can accelerate into a serious player in film and TV tourism by also having a central commission actively supporting its regions.