Global Travel Insight

November 2022 – An increase in visitors to Bath and North East Somerset—where a popular TV series was filmed—appears to have aided travel recovery to the region. The show was primarily filmed on location there and promoted the city as a key tourism destination. An analysis of data from the Visa International Travel (VISIT) platform* shows a trend in tourist arrivals to Bath and North East Somerset, and their spending behavior following the release of the TV show, Bridgerton. With the ability to reach audiences around the globe, movies and TV shows have an impact beyond mere entertainment. It is not uncommon for movies and TV series to use embedded advertising or product placements that implicitly promote certain products and services. A byproduct of that, intended or not, is the emergence of certain cities, venues or attractions as key tourism destinations.

Notably, one study found that almost 80 million tourists were motivated by films and TV to travel to certain destinations in 2018, double the 40 million reported in 2012.¹ Fan interest in visiting filming locations featured in popular films and television shows has driven travel to a variety of destinations including among others: Croatia, Spain, Malta and Scotland.² With the emergence of multiple streaming platforms and rising investment in film production, the influence of movies and TV shows on consumer travel decisions is likely to grow.

Highlights:

• Bridgerton’s popularity reaches beyond just English-speaking countries
• Fan base emerges from show in Qatar and Japan

Released in December 2020, Bridgerton quickly ascended to become one of the top record-breaking shows on Netflix. The show was watched by more than 82 million Netflix households in its first 28 days. It was the most watched show in 83 countries, including the U.S., India, Brazil, the U.K. and France.³ The show maintained its strong momentum, with the season two premiere breaking the record for the most-watched English-language series on Netflix in its first three days.⁴  The city of Bath estimates that Bridgerton has contributed at least £1.5 million to the local economy from domestic visitors alone. Given the show’s release during a period of heightened social distancing measures and substantial restrictions on cross-border travel throughout the world, measuring its direct impact on tourism is complicated. However, certain data patterns suggest that Bridgerton likely aided in driving some tourism recovery in Bath and North East Somerset, and promoted Bath as a key destination.

Data patterns suggest that Bridgerton likely aided in driving some tourism recovery in Bath and North East Somerset, and promoted Bath as a key destination.

Based on the recovery rate in inbound tourism to the U.K. by city, Bath and North East Somerset stood out as the least sensitive to travel restrictions in the first half of 2021 compared to other U.K. cities. By Q1-2021, three months after Bridgerton was released and when restrictions on international travel were still tight, Bath and North East Somerset recovered around 8.3 percent of the number of tourist arrivals it had in Q1-2019, according to the Visa International Travel (VISIT) platform.⁵ The same pattern was observed in Q2-2021, with Bath and North East Somerset maintaining its position as one of the top recovering cities in the U.K. for inbound tourism compared to 2019 levels, outperforming the most popular destinations in the U.K., including London, Manchester and Edinburgh (Figure 1). The show’s popularity even extended beyond English-speaking countries. Bridgerton reportedly ranked among the top 10 TV shows on Netflix in Turkey and Qatar for 116 days and 114 days, respectively.⁶ Examining inbound travel trends to the U.K. by country of origin reveals some noteworthy insights, particularly from Qatar and Japan. While London still accounted for the largest share of tourism spend in the U.K. (almost 40 percent), when including spending by Qatari and Japanese tourists, Bath appeared to gradually gain interest and momentum, particularly after the release of Bridgerton, possibly suggesting the positive impact of the show in driving tourism and tourism spend.

For Qatari tourists to the U.K., the share of Bath and North East Somerset in their total number of travel-related⁷ transactions surged from 4 percent of the total in Q1-2019 to 14 percent in Q1-2021, a whopping 10 percentage point increase (Figure 3). Qatari travel-related spending in Bath and North East Somerset jumped from 2 percent of their overall spend in the U.K. in Q1-2019 to 13 percent in Q1-2021, while Qatari spending in restaurants in Bath and North East Somerset surged from a miniscule number in Q1-2019 to 9 percent of total restaurant spend in the U.K. in Q1-2021. Similarly, the share of Bath and North East Somerset in Japanese tourists’ total number of travel-related transactions in the U.K. spiked from 1 percent in Q1-2019 to 12 percent in Q1-2021, while the increase in spend was less pronounced, rising from 1 percent of their total U.K. spend to 2 percent over the same period.

Visa International Travel (VISIT) Platform Methodology

Visa International Travel (VISIT) platform is a proprietary model that combines Visa's transaction data with publicly-available cross-border arrival statistics. The database provides a comprehensive view into high-frequency cross-border travel flows, currently encompassing over 100 origin and destination countries,** which collectively account for more than 85 percent of global travel.

VISIT combines unique counts of Visa credentials that register a face-to-face transaction at a merchant outside their home country in a given calendar month with other transaction data such as average spend per credential, card usage patterns at lodging merchants and others. Visa uses this depersonalized and aggregated data to model official arrival statistics compiled by various government sources and to generate estimates that fill in the large gaps existing in the cross-border travel data.

**Based on information from the United Nations.

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