Setting the Scene. Developing a Policy Agency for Sustainable Forms of Media Tourism

Introduction

This project focuses on media tourism: the phenomenon of people travelling to places associated with movies, television series, and other forms of popular culture. Media tourism has gradually evolved into a multi-million-dollar industry, with far-reaching implications for the related locations, affecting their economy, environment, and community.

Challenges for City Governments

As a result, city governments increasingly seek strategies to manage both the positive and negative impacts of these often-capricious media and tourism flows. However, the extensive research data generated by the ERC project "Words of Imagination" (WOI), which has been collected in multiple Western and non-Western cities (e.g., Kingston, Seoul, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, and Edinburgh), confirms:

1. The potential of new media tourism initiatives.
2. The need for (humanities) research-based knowledge and critical and holistic advice to develop effective policies for sustainable and inclusive media tourism.

Project Goals

Therefore, our goal is to set up a world-leading policy development agency called Setting the Scene (SETS) that is focused on providing municipalities around the world with a set of products and services to develop their media tourism industry in an environmentally sustainable, socially responsible, and culturally sensitive manner.

Unique Approach

While several agencies advising government departments on the industry exist, none of them adopt a critical and holistic (humanities) perspective and focus on the sustainability and inclusivity of media tourism.

Conclusion

The ultimate goal of this PoC is to demonstrate the (financial) viability and (technical) feasibility of the envisioned policy development agency SETS in assisting city governments with the search for tailored research-based policies concerning sustainable and inclusive media tourism.