The Borat Effect: Film-Induced Tourism Gone Wrong

Abstract

This research estimates the economic impact of an increase in tourism to Kazakhstan as a result of the film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, released in 2006. The film, controversial for its shock value, portrayed Kazakhstan in a negative light, yet raised awareness of the country as a tourist destination. Despite the negative depiction of Kazakhstan, international tourist expenditure increased by 6.4%. However, the increase in tourism was estimated to have an overall adverse effect on the economy. This adverse effect on the rest of the economy overshadowed the positive benefits of tourism.Keywords: film-induced tourism; economic impact; computable general equilibrium model; Borat; Kazakhstan Film-induced tourism has been a key niche market for many national tourism organizations and is a growing worldwide phenomenon (Hudson and Ritchie, 2006). Connell (2012) provides a thorough review of the evolution, progress and prospects of film tourism from a cross-disciplinary approach. While there has been an increasing amount of literature dedicated to film-induced tourism, there is still much debate about the perceived and actual impacts of film tourism to destinations. From a demand perspective, Connell (2012) notes 10 different ways in which tourists participate in some sort of film tourism: tourists visiting real locations portrayed in a specific film/television production; tourists visiting studio sets; tourists visiting specific film/television theme parks and attractions; tourists visiting theme attractions with a film theme; tourists visiting locations where filming is taking place; tourists visiting a location marketed as a film location; participation in an organized tour of film locations; participation in organized tours of film celebrity homes; tourists visiting film festivals; and tourists visiting a destination for film premieres.Much of the early film tourism research highlighted the power of movies and television series in driving increased visitation to destinations. Early examples of films driving visitation are documented by Riley and van Doren

The economic impact of on-screen tourism: The case of The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit

“…The CGE model, however, can be used to examine the changes in tourism demand alongside other economic indicators such as welfare, employment and industry outputs. Pratt (2015) applied a static CGE model to evaluate the economic impact of the film Borat: Cultural Leanings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan on the national economy of Kazakhstan. The study found that the film reinforced the image of Kazakhstan, increasing tourist arrivals, but eventually brought a loss to GDP of US$2.78 million, as the increase in tourism crowded out other sectors.…”

“…Econometric models are used to evaluate the impact of films on tourism demand, in terms of tourist arrivals in a destination, but the total economic impact, in terms of the contribution to GDP and employment, has not been assessed (see Mitchell and Stewart, 2012;Kim, Chen and Su, 2009). The Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling has been applied to evaluate the economic impact of on-screen tourism, but the crude estimates of the change in expenditure of tourism demand input into the model affects the reliability of the results (see Pratt, 2015).…”

From Blockbuster to Neighbourhood Buster: The Effect of Films on Barcelona

“…Since the 1990s, research on tourism induced by audio-visual fiction has demonstrated the relationship between the presence of certain places in films and television series and the increase in the number of visitors to them after screening [15][16][17]. Hence, the academic literature has focused on such varied aspects as its role in the construction of the destination image [7,[18][19][20][21][22] and the motivations for the visit [18,[23][24][25][26], the impact of film tourism on local economies [27][28][29][30], the experiences of film tourists [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] and their use from the point of view of marketing the destination [7,15,[42][43][44][45], among others.…”

“…All this depends on the degree of exposure of the place in the story and on the interrelation with the story and the characters that star in it-many of them, also, are played by celebrities with a high prescriptive power [15,16,[49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. Movies and television series have the ability to turn places that did not attract visitors prior to their production into tourist destinations [25,44], as has proved to be the case for the cities Natchitoches (Louisiana, USA) (Steel Magnolias, Herbert Ross, 1989) [15], Sheffield, England (The Full Monty, Peter Cattaneo, 1997) [57], the town of Wang in the Chinese province of Hunan (Fu rong zhen [Hibiscus Town], Xie Jin, 1986) [52], and even Kazakhstan (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Larry Charles, 2006) [30].…”

A tourism growth model

“…Moreover, similar to oil-exporting countries, tourism-led economies show symptoms of the Dutch disease (Capó et al, 2007; Inchausti-Sintes, 2015; Nowak and Sahli, 2007; Pratt, 2015) where a valuable export commodity/service occupies an increasing share of the total economy, affecting its economic productive-mix and long-term growth (Cherif et al, 2016). As a result of tourism, tourist-based economies also reduce their diversification, their sectoral linkage effects, and thus their chances to ‘reconvert their economies’ if tourism eventually falters in the long term.…”