ABSTRACT
The growing competition in the US-American television market between traditional cable networks and streaming providers such as Netflix or Amazon has sparked a surge of innovation in the quality and format of television shows. Apart from the increase in production quantity and quality, there are a number of additional factors that give TV shows some clear advantages over feature films in terms of their tourism-inducing properties. Destination marketers have the opportunity to assess the tourism-inducing potential of a TV show during the release of the first season, before investing into a marketing campaign accompanying the following seasons. Official imaging media are actively controlled and implemented by tourism marketers. The Game of Thrones social media campaign carried out by Tourism Ireland in 2014 and 2015 turned fact into fiction by selling Northern Ireland as the fantasy land of Westeros. Popular culture tourism, and film tourism in particular, can provide unique opportunities to stand out from the crowd.
