Destination Marketing Through Film Tourism: A Study on Western Orissa

Abstract

Film tourism is a growing phenomenon worldwide, fueled by both the growth of the entertainment industry and the increase in international travel model for exploiting film tourism marketing opportunities. Tourism destination marketing is now widely recognized as an essential component in the management of destinations. In harmony with the general marketing literature, which understands marketing as a management tool, some researchers understand destination marketing as a form of 'market-oriented strategic planning' and hence as a strategic approach to place development rather than a promotional tool.Tourists today are more experienced and looking for new destinations and new experience. In the tourism industry, there has been a growing phenomenon that tourists visit destinations featured through films which are not directly related to DMOs' tourism promotion. This is a new form of cultural tourism called film-induced tourism which still receives little attention from both academic and practitioners due to the lack ofknowledge and understanding on the benefits of film on tourism. Recent research suggests that films can have strong influence on tourist decision-making and films do not only provide short-term tourism revenue but long-term prosperify to the destination. The primary focus of this article is to provide a theoretical insight into the relationship between films induced tourism and destination imagery, which in turn can be used to market Western Orissa.