The Lord of the Rings, New Zealand, and tourism: image building with film

Film induced tourism has recently gained increased attention in the academic literature and by the tourism industry. Increasingly aware of the high international profile films get and create, Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) very quickly developed promotional material aligned with The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy for the films' international releases. Utilising the organic images of the films, and complementing this with induced images in advertising and the TNZ tourist website, 100% Pure New Zealand, TNZ hoped for the explicit link to be drawn between the scenes in LOTR and New Zealand. TNZ commissioned NFO New Zealand to undertake research to identify the actual Post Production Effects (PPE) of the films on New Zealand's international tourism image, and more specifically the impact on awareness, motivations and behaviour. The results indicate a small impact of the films on tourist behaviour (1%). With a reinterpretation of the results this working paper provides further detail about what the results identified. This paper also identifies links between LOTR, and how the film has modified the destination image of New Zealand.