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Malta and ‘Popeye Village’ This case study shows how existing policy initiatives help to attract new productions to a location and also looks at the survival of a film set (Popeye, 1980) which successfully engages local businesses and commercial operators to develop new tourism products. The ‘Film Set’, was built by Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions for the live-action musical feature film Popeye directed by Robert Altman and today is known as ‘Popeye Village’. The case of ‘Popeye Village’ demonstrates the challenges of sustaining a 33-year old screen tourism initiative and continuing to appeal to today’s visitors.
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Sandomierz and Father Matthew This case study presents a successful co-operation between the location’s authorities and the producers of the series. It illustrates the potential that can be leveraged by minimal financial input and which in this case resulted in a measurable increase of the city’s popularity. It also shows that strategies which prove to be successful should be developed further, demonstrated in this instance by the city’s strong image campaign being applied to the entire region.
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Ystad and Wallander This case study identifies a special symbiotic relationship between a location and a production. It is a unique example of how a public organisation (the Municipality) can act almost as a business unit, developing new tourism products and exploiting a screen production by using it to attract more tourists to create significant benefits to the local people and businesses.
Location
Júzcar, Spain
Anchor Bay, Malta
Population
243 (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2012)
416,1101 in 2011
Economic background
50% Agriculture - 30% Livestock - 20% Tourism (City Hall, 2013)
Number of employed people/sectors: Agriculture: 1.5%; Industry: 24.7%; Services: 73.9% (2011 est.) out of which 25% Tourism. Tourism generated 26.4% of GDP in 2012.1
Lead organization involved in the implementation of the case
Municipality of Juzcar
Anchor Bay Leisures Ltd.
Other partners
Bungalow 25
Mediterranean Film Facilities, Mediterranean Film Studios
Origin of the case
The Smurfs is a 2011 American 3D family comedy film loosely based on The Smurfs comic book series created by the Belgian comics artist Peyo and the 1980s animated TV series it spawned.
Popeye is a 1980 musical comedy live-action film adaptation directed by Robert Altman and adapted from E. C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre comic strip, also known as Popeye.
Production company(ies)
Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation, Kerner Entertainment Company
Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Productions
Length of production/ case history
2 years, since 2011
33 years, since1980
Good practice features
Public-Private partnership, Destination development
Policy initiative (tax incentive), destination development, new tourism products
Tourist Profile
Mainly national tourists
Total number of tourists (including overnight cruise passengers) reached 1,454,400, recording an increase of 2.0% (2012) 47.1% of all tourists in 2012 hailed from the UK followed by 15.0% from Germany and 13.8% from France.
Economic impacts
Unemployment dropped from 12 people in 2011 to 0 in 2013.
3.5% of the tourists are screen tourists (2012)
Approximately 80,000 tourists six months after the repainting compared to 300 visitor per annum previously. In total 180,000 visitors since June 2011.
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