Tourism guru off to 'Star Wars' site

A Dunedin tourism consultant is heading overseas to help organisations capitalise on locations that appear in major films.

One of his destinations is a remote island in Ireland, used during filming for the latest instalment of the Star Wars saga.

University of Otago PhD graduate and film tourism consultant Stefan Roesch helps tourism organisations find ways to convert and capitalise on international locations used in films so they can be used as tourist destinations.

''Often, film productions are shot in places that are not necessarily on a traveller's travel map but gives destinations a chance to promote new places with an emotional hook.

''That's really powerful if you have the emotional hook of the film's story,'' he said.

Connecting that emotional tie fans have to films with the locations where they were filmed was key.

Next week, he will travel to Brussels, to speak at a European parliamentary conference on how to take advantage of filmmaking and marketing strategies.

He said Europe needed to invest in attracting more film productions and then make use of the promotional opportunities from those films.

''I will ... make a clear statement [about] how much money the secondary effect of film production actually brings into an area and why it does need investment.''

He will spend four days there before travelling to Ireland, where he will meet tourism companies to discuss ways the rocky island Skellig Michael, off Ireland's Western coast, could be used as a tourist destination.

It was the setting for scenes of the soon-to-be-released Star Wars The Last Jedi.

The island can only be visited between certain months of the year and access is weather-dependent.

The film location has already been seen in promotional clips as the place where the character Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill, has decamped to and teaches Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, how to master her use of ''the Force''.

A challenge tourist operators faced in Ireland was that the film had not been released yet.

''It's difficult if you don't know how much of Ireland you will see on screen,'' Dr Roesch said.

He found himself in his chosen career after completing his thesis on tourism.

The research in his thesis examined the experiences of fans who visited locations from major films such as The Lord of the Rings, earlier Star Wars films and The Sound of Music.

His recently launched website, FilmQuest.co, directs movie fans to film locations of well-known scenes.

There were many film fans who would happily pay large amounts of money to visit an authentic location, Dr Roesch said.

He has also worked with Northern Ireland Tourism on strategies to capitalise on locations used in the television series Game of Thrones.

samuel.white@odt.co.nz