Tolkein Experience: Understanding the Power of Mythology in Film Tourism

BACHELOR OF ARTS (HONOURS)

NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY

DESTINATION PLANNING AND RESORT DEVELOPMENT

(DPRD)

(TM 0224)

RESEARCH TOPIC
Tolkein Experience: Understanding the power of mythology in Film Tourism
ASSESSMENT SUBMISSION

(Words Count: 2910)

Name: Aileen Lee Ai Ling        

Student No.: W15042227

Lecturer: Dr Eunice Tan

Declaration:

Except where I have indicated, the work I am submitting in this assignment is my own work and has not been submitted for assessment in another course.

________________

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract        

Introduction        

Film-induced tourism as a Destination Marketing Strategy        

1.1        Economic        

2.1        Social-cultural        

3.1        Environmental        

Tourist Experience: Motivations, Expectations and Satisfaction.        

4.1        Motivation        

5.1        Expectations        

6.1        Satisfaction        

Hyper-Reality        

The Tour        

Implications and Sustainability        

Recommendations        

Conclusion        

References        

Abstract

This paper presents the major findings in film tourism, otherwise contemporary tourism on how these notion has impressively contribute to destination brandings. The case is particularly with the concept of film-induced tourism, like the movie trilogy The Lord of The Rings has drastically increased tourism visitation to New Zealand. This study investigated the tourists’ experience: Motivation, Expectations and satisfaction between the film and tourism.  Not only this article outlines the degree of film tourism knowledge and examine the tourist sites depicted in the film itself, it also highlights the impacts and sustainability of the current tourism destinations factors based on the concept of TBL (Triple Bottom Line).

Introduction

The power of film industries has created a whole new panorama of the ideology in tourism. This intellectual phenomenon has increasingly appealed to diverse markets, destination marketers and potential tourists of all over the globe. Because of this pervasive prodigy, the immense majority of work comes from a Western hegemonic perspective, especially in the Australia, US, UK and New Zealand.  The success of the trilogy The Lord of the Rings has successfully portrayed New Zealand’s landscape as the “Middle Earth” or the “Home of Middle Earth” and achieved over 200 million moviegoers and readers worldwide.  The film is based of J. R. R Tolkien’s epic fantasy novel that a group of fictional protagonists embarks on a journey and the Power of the Ring is the ultimate weapon to conquer and rule over Middle-Earth. The film took place at the most spectacular and remote locations with the landscapes providing all the needed sites from the Rivendell to the Misty Mountains. As New Zealand has become the embodiment of the “Middle Earth” to the global audiences, New Zealand’s tourism has high expectancy for film tourism. For that particular reason, New Zealand National Airline as labelled itself to the Airline of Middle Earth and in addition to that, New Zealand tourism Board’s consumer website (http://www.newzealand.com/), has jointly aligned itself with the film as well. On account of the film (LOTR), the tourism enterprises has acknowledged the growing desire of the viewers/fans to visit the featured sites and has reacted to their demands. New Zealand tourism operators established nationwide tours integrating The Lord of the Rings former film sites as their tourism attraction. For that reason, this paper briefly discussed the implications for levels of tourist motivations, expectation, satisfaction of tourist experiences and the framework of Mitchell’s hyper-real and real a-priori model.

Film-induced tourism as a Destination Marketing Strategy

Undoubtedly, images from the film gives us the perception of the film itself actively plays a role in social concept and consequently becomes a substantial tool for marketing a tourism destination. Based on anecdotal evidence, it has a fallacy that has been set by the news media that the dynamism of film by constantly presenting stories, promoting places where the movies have been set will draw the attention of tourists to flock to film site. From a destination marketing perspective, New Zealand Tourism has commendably accredit for building their knowledge through empirical research method as well as through strategic planning. The effectiveness of the destination marketing may otherwise be lost without any appropriate tourism destination planning and the acceptance to contrary data (Beeton, 2006, pp. 182-184). Geographic considerations has also taken into account when transforming Tolkien’s imaginary landscapes of Middle Earth into unbelievably reality (see Figure 1 clarifies the physical geography of Middle Earth according to Tolkein’s imagination. By using diversity of spectacular landscapes as the filming infrastructure of the movie, not only it broaden the view of what New Zealand can offer as a visitor destination, but also enforce the connection between the country and the success of the film. Henceforth, the illustration of present New Zealand as the home of Middle Earth.