Shoot At Site : 15th March 2013 at The Renaissance

Right from its inception, films are selling dreams, that is why film people are known as dream sellers or dream merchant. To lure viewers these dream merchants capture best locales. Often our bollywood producers are blamed to add a song and dance sequence or two shot in exotic locations even if there is no demand from the script. This quest to capture exotic locations hs taken our producers to all the five continents.

With the slow down of world economy, countries are looking for alternate revenue sources. Tourism is one such means. In case a location is shown in a movie it will be seen by lacs and crore of movie lovers, out of which many would like to visit that place. Thus additional revenue generation for that country or state. Yas Chopra is a fine example of this route. Yash ji all the time try to include locales of Switzerland in his movie. The Swiss government realised that there was a sudden increase of Indian tourists and offered several sops to Yash Chopra. Krish had captured beauty of Blue Mountain Region of New Zealand in song dance sequence, many Indians visited these offbeat destinations.

This year Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) from the side of FICCI Frames at Mumbai organised day long discussion on additional tourism potential generated by Films andTV series. On the occasion, 'Film Tourism-India as next hotspot' a book painstakingly compiled by Yes Bank was also released

Few of the Hollywood Movies helped to create additional tourism potential in various parts of globe :

Location/Country                         Film                                                Impact on Tourist Revenue

Wallace Monument, Scotland  Braveheart                               300% increase in vistors year after release
Devils Tower, Wyoming         Close Encounter of Third Kind       75% increase
Fort Hayes, Kansas                   Dances with Wolf                    25% increase
New Zealand                            The Lord of Rings                    10% increase every year
Various Locations in UK          Harry Potter                              All locations saw more than 50%increase
Thailand                                    Beach                                       22% increase in youth market
Canakkale, Turkey                    Troy                                         73% increase in tourism
National Parks in Sydney          Mission Impossible 2               200% increase in 2000
Rawanda                                   Gorrila in the Mist                    20% increase in 1998

In most of the developed economies across America and Europe, Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) are playing key role in facilitating film shooting and managing spill over effects which also ensures minimisation of economic leakages. In fact New Zealand is a very active country in this regard, especially after success of Lords of the Rings. many US nad Indian films are shot in Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand or in Eastern European Countries just because of labor, infrastructure cost.

Many countries offer  tax relief for co-produced movies and even subsidise the production.

Many Indian States are having unique exotic locations, and  are  trying hard to hardsell themselves as hotspot of shooting destination but poor infrastructure, logistics as well as law and order  is a big impediment. To make  most preferred destination states have to learn a lesson or two from New Zealand, Australia, Turkey, Canada or even poor European cousins East European countries.

This year Tourism Boards  of Singapore, Turkey, Dubai, Germany, Australia came to woo Indian producers at this event.  Four Indian state tourism boards viz., West bengal, Gujrat, Maharashtra  and Himachal also put up their stalls and try to solicit their untapped tourist potential. They are offering sops also but the kind of good infrastructure, logistics  and comfort level desired by film producers is lacking.
So there is a need to address these basic issues then only it make sense to pitch.