Placing fandom: Reflections on film tourism

This chapter is a reflection on the experience and practice of film tourism based on the insights of a four-year study on the topic. I suggest that to understand much contemporary film tourism, it is necessary to understand both fandom and tourism practice. In this chapter, this is done through the discussion of two related research questions: How, and in what different ways, do film tourists experience places related to their object of fandom, and what role do film-related places play in contemporary fandom? These questions are explored through the use of three case studies of “fantastic” film tourism - Game of Thrones tourism in Dubrovnik and Northern Ireland, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park in Orlando, and The Prisoner fans in Portmeirion - which are here compared and contrasted. For the first question, I explore what I call the modes of the “imaginative experience” of film tourism, hyperdiegetic, production, and historical, and show how these three ways of experiencing places interact with each other and, most importantly, connect to the embodied nature of film tourism. In reflecting on the second question, I look at how the potential of this individual embodied experience affects the broader fan groups, discussing what it means for a fandom to “have a place” and what it might suggest about future directions for not only the tourism industry but the media industry as well. In doing so, this chapter presents a more holistic reflection on the state of contemporary film tourism, drawing together different cases and aspects in order to indicate what is important about film tourism today and where it is heading in the future.