Written by new-contact on May 18, 2012. Posted in On Location

Film London awarded funding for film tourism initiative EuroScreen

Film London has been given funding to launch EuroScreen, a two-year initiative designed to drive the growth of film tourism across Europe. The development comes in the aftermath of a 2011 report from Sweden that considered the film tourism impact of the Millennium films.

The term ‘film tourism’ relates to how towns, cities and regions sell themselves to national and international visitors based on their exposure in film. Film London has been awarded EUR1.5 million from the Interreg IVC fund to run the initiative, in addition to separate investments of EUR400,000 from each of the eight partner organisations.

While Film London is the lead partner, the initiative has the support of eight different organisations in Italy, Romania, Malta, Poland, Sweden, Slovenia and Spain.

Adrian Wootton is Chief Executive of Film London: “Film London has long been an advocate of the value and unlocked potential of screen tourism. We have seen visitor figures to some destinations in the capital soar after being used as a filming location on big-budget movies. EuroScreen enables us to take this knowledge and experience to the next level.

“Working with our partners across Europe we aim to develop feasible business strategies and bring together the production and tourism industries to the benefit of our cities and I thank Interreg IVC for the opportunity to do this important work.”

We have seen visitor figures to some destinations in [London] soar after being used as a filming location on big-budget movies. EuroScreen enables us to take this knowledge and experience to the next level.

Adrian Wootton, Film London

Sweden’s 2011 report on the impact of the Millennium Trilogy was published in anticipation of David Fincher’s remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but it couldn't draw firm conclusions. Perhaps significantly, the Millennium films don’t glamorise Sweden in the same way that Lord of the Rings – and soon two Hobbit films – has worked for New Zealand.

The EuroScreen initiative has great potential to explore the film tourism phenomenon in more detail on a pan-European level and to open an ongoing discussion on best practice.