Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Keepers of crumbling stately homes and cash-strapped parish churches may want to take note: it seems there is one surefire way to draw in desperately needed visitors.
Take on a second life as the beloved educational establishment of a fictional teenage wizard, or perhaps offer your lake as a bathing spot for a brooding aristocratic heart-throb of the 19th century, and success appears practically guaranteed.
Tourists are flocking to the British locations made famous as the backdrops for both big-budget films and less glamorous TV shows, according to a comprehensive study of the phenomenon.
And for productions with cult status, such as Trainspotting and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which continues to draw visitors to Doune Castle in Stirlingshire, the boost to tourism can last for decades.
Dad’s Army tours are still popular in Thetford, Norfolk, almost 40 years after it first appeared as Walmington-on-Sea.
In one of the most dramatic examples, Alnwick Castle in Northumberland saw a 120 per cent rise in visitor numbers after appearing in the Harry Potter films masquerading as Hogwarts, the boarding school attended by the young sorcerer and his friends.
The series is estimated to have brought £9 million to the area in tourist revenue.
The release of The Da Vinci Code saw a visitor increase of 26 per cent at Lincoln Cathedral, 33 per cent at Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian, and a five-fold jump at Temple Church, London.
Children’s programme Balamory had a dramatic effect on its real- life home on the Isle of Mull.
An extra 160,000 tourists, a rise of 40 per cent, were drawn to the tiny village of Tobermory, whose permanent population is less than 1,000.
John Woodward, chief executive of the UK Film Council, said: “British films and television programmes play a powerful role in showcasing the UK to the rest of the world and boosting tourism.
“There are countless examples of visitors flocking to locations they’ve seen in films or on TV and the effect can last for years.”
By Rachel Williams
