Film-Induced Tourism Among Students – An Exploratory Study

Students and young people travel are a growing market, which is becoming increasingly important for tourism service providers. Film-induced tourism is also a rising form of tourism. However, there is not much research to link students' behavior to film-induced tourism. This research aims at researching two areas of tourism, focusing on students' general awareness of film-induced tourism and their experiences with accidental or intentional encounters with film settings. Furthermore, this paper also includes an analysis of students' interests in various film-related activities, such as visiting places that have become famous as a result of a movie, places where films have been cast, film-theme parks, movie tours or attending film premieres and film festivals. The study was conducted through an online survey in the form of a questionnaire that included both open and closed-ended questions. A total of 102 answers were collected and evaluated from students at various universities, up to age of 26 years. The interest in film-induced tourism among students is very high (about 88% wanting to participate in film-induced tourism activities), students being particularly keen on visits to places that have become famous as a result of a film (63.7%) and to places where movies were cast (61.5%). It also emerged that Romania is a little sought-after movie destination, but with a very high potential for growth, especially if the state was involved in promotion.