Embargoed until 9th increase in film production in the UK, a 35% increase on 2013 and the highest recorded figure ever. As a result, screen tourism is a growing phenomenon, with more and more locations across the country benefiting from a booming screen industry.
Attractive tax incentives combined with England’s magnificent countryside, coast, towns and cities, historic buildings and urban architecture, make this country a firm choice for producers and directors from across the globe.
Now, new figures from Creative England and research specialist Olsberg•SPI prove that this is also great news for the visitor economy in England outside of London.Viewers are no longer just content to watch a television programme or film on screen; increasingly, they want to see and explore the places they were filmed at first hand to fully immerse themselves in the world of the drama or film. New research, produced in association with VisitEngland, looks at the impact of screen tourism across England outside of London – and it shows that our filming locations are attracting overseas visitors in abundance.
International screen tourists ,or ‘set-jetters’, brought between £100 million-£140 million to England’s economy (outside London) in 2014, with the most popular locations generating up to £1.6 million every year in international visitor spend.Combined with the value of domestic screen tourists, several sites generated significant levels of screen tourism spend. For example, Alnwick Castle (famously the home of Hogwarts for the first two Harry Potter films) generated £4.3 million in screen tourism spend in 2014.
Creative England is an organisation that helps to promote filming in England. By sharing the result of this new research, they hope it will encourage tourism-related organisations to make the most of the growing phenomenon.March 2015: Filming in the UK has reached record levels. 2014 saw a massive
