MovieScope Magazine has just released my latest article on Film Tourism and its potential as a film funding resource for filmmakers:
The good news is that it could result in access to more funding and other marketing resources for films that showcase a particular location. We’re already starting to see examples of this: Israel’s tourism ministry, for example, reportedly invested $8m in the romcom The Old Cinderella, starring Chinese actress Zhang Jingchu, which shot in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. And Botswana Tourism invested $5m in the HBO/BBC series The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which shot in and around Gaborone in 2009
The bad news, however, is that — unlike film incentives or tax credit programmes that are based on clear and easily discernible formulas and rules—tourism offices and destination management organisations aren’t set up to hand over cash to filmmakers. There’s no simple calculation that says, ‘if you pay me X, my movie will create Y tourists and Z economic value’. In a nutshell, that means if you want tourism cash, then you’re likely going to have to work hard for it.
Continued in the Digital Mag here.