Cinema Tourism Comes to Cuenca
Cinema Tourism (Set-Jetting) is a reality, and you only have to do the Math to realise that.
Following the release of Out of Africa, the number of visitors to Kenya increased by 500%; while visitors to the Wallace Monument rose by 300% following the release of Braveheart.
The Crown Hotel, Amersham, had to put up the ‘No Vacancies’ sign for three years following the steamy scenes between Hugh Grant and Andy McDowell filmed there during Four Weddings and a Funeral. And the list goes on.
Spain has been slow to follow the trend, which is surprising considering that it is the non-English speaking country with most English language films ever shot; over 900 and still counting.
Valencia resident Bob Yareham has been trying to do something about that for years, encouraging Town Halls and Provincial governments to develop this rewarding form of tourism.
His project ‘Movies Made in Spain’ identifies the locations of over 900 films and TV series filmed partly or wholly in Spain in English.
But it’s an uphill task; the authorities in Valencia have done little to take advantage of the filming of Tomorrowland with George Clooney and Hugh Laurie at the City of Arts and Sciences; the authorities at Trebuena, Cádiz tore down the Japanese POW camp built there by Steven Spielberg for Empire of the Sun, and with a few glorious exceptions, the making of all these films is not being harnessed by tourism entities in order to attract new visitors.
Putting his money where his mouth is, Bob and a colleague, Jaume Palau, a Catalan expert in tourism, who is the author of books about the locations of James Bond films (many of them in Spain) and Game of Thrones (ditto), organised an event in Cuenca in an attempt to encourage a private-public cinema tour, visiting the main locations in that province, which has witnessed filming by Richard Lester, Sergio Leone, Stanley Kramer, John Milius, Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, “Brosnan, Pierce Brosnan,” Charlton Heston, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Benicio del Toro, Tim Robbins, Robert de Niro, Oliver Reed, Michael York and Geraldine Chaplin, to name but a few.
The cinema tourists will be able to watch the scenes from the film shot at the very locations they are visiting.
Cuenca is an enchanting province, but not one that is saturated by tourists, and as well as the spectacular city, perched on a hill, it has three major international filming locations; the castle of Belmonte, the monastery of Uclés and the bizarre, geological rock formations of La Ciudad Encantada and Los Callejones de Las Majadas.
With the help of local audio-visual producer Alejandro Pacios, politicians, tourist organisations, film producers, tour operators, hotel and restaurant owners and other potential merchandising manufacturers were invited on February 4th 2016 to the Parador Nacional de Cuenca (where Pierce Brosnan stayed while filming The World is not Enough) to a round table meeting, from which it is planned to go beyond talking and produce a pilot tour to tap into the unexploited market for cinema tourism.
The Cuenca project was followed in March 2017 by a similar one in the province of Guadalajara, where Katherine Hepburn and Vanessa Redgrave made The Trojan Women.
Recent Comments