Small Town Sleeper

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For true film buffs, nothing may well be more exciting than actually going to the locations and structures used as settings inside their favorite films. The quantity of travelers that have become swept up inside wish to combine travel with entertainment tourism increases each year. You need stats? The Annals of Tourism Research have recorded an increase of 50% in movie location tourism during the past several years. Now, travelers who try to see places where their most favorite films are set have their own own name: set jetters.

In america alone around five million movie fans tend to spend their holidays visiting filming locations. Because of the increase in demand, many travel and tour companies are actually offering package deals that specifically include movie locations as destinations. This booming way to obtain tourist money has prompted the U.S. Department of Commerce to setup a million dollar fund for a advertising campaign entitled “You’ve Seen the Movie, Now Look at the Set”.

The U.S.A. is way from your only country taking advantage of this new travel trend. New Zealand has seen an outburst of set jetters visiting Peter Jackson’s version of Middle Earth in the epic trilogy Lord with the Rings. Similar movie locations such those picturesque places affecting the film Eat, Pray, Love can also be experiencing an uptick in tourist traffic.

In Europe, set jetters could be spotted flocking towards Dunkurque, France (one of several locations employed in the Keira Knightley-James McAvoy film Atonement) as well as the Belgian city of Bruges (background to the British black comedy film In Bruges, described by actor Ralph Feinnes inside the film being a mythic town).

The Sean Penn film In the Wild, based on a real-life story, is partly from the dramatic and rugged Alaskan wilderness. Believe it or not, jet setters are even flocking to Alaska; they’re literally following Emile Hirsch’s footsteps into the wild.