Identifying Central Parks Effect on Movie Tourism - Research Paper Example

Movie Tourism in New York: Identifying Central Park’s effect on Movie Tourism and Movie Tourism in New York: Identifying Central Parks effect on movie tourism Introduction The economic worth of the Central Park’s iconic character is indicated in the role it plays as a movie and television production site for photographers. The Park’s conservancy contracted 2,500 film and television permits in 2006, which involved approximately 4,000 location days of shooting in the Park. From the information gathered in the permit procedures, the Conservancy estimates almost 63,000 workers in film and television production took part in generating films and movies in 2006 alone. Bearing in mind that an average worker took at least a day per shot, it is estimated that the Park accounts for almost 250 full-time equivalent film and television production jobs (Central Park Conservancy, 2009, p.28). Workers in the film production crew generate close to $71 million in economic output in New York City. Through the multiplier effect, it is estimated that film production and tourism generates an extra 366FTE jobs, as well as $ 64.6 million economic output in the City. The effect of the Park’s use as a site for film, TV and photography supersedes the economic activity in a direct and indirect way, generated by production. From around 300 million tourists from across the world, who watch the ING New York City Marathon on TV to millions of fans of movies such as Kramer vs. Kramer, Marathon Man or Spiderman, the Park is an invaluable site of the face of New York City showcases to tourists from different parts of the world (Central Park Conservancy, 2009, p.28). Central Park has created a positive international image as a movie tourism destination. It is broadly acknowledged in tourism literature that a destination’s image highly impacts a tourist’s destination choice. Images of destinations play a big role in influencing tourist decision-making process as the foundation for tourists to make a choice on where to visit. Butler suggests that movies can determine the travel preference of individuals who are exposed to the destination attributes and build a favorable destination image through their representation. Movies offer information on various elements of the country, the city and the park, such as nature, culture and people. This leads to the construction of the attitude towards the City. An interest in the nation and its positive image can ultimately result in an actual visit to the Park (Rewtrakunphaiboon, 2010, p.2). Literature Review Growth of entertainment Industry The rising popularity of movie-induced tourism in Central Park can be attributed to the increase in international travel and growth of entertainment industry in New York. Schofield argues that movie-induced tourism is expected to rapidly get more fashionable because more audiences are attracted to cinematographic history through the real visiting experience. Central Park offers cinematographic history of famous films acted within the site hence can attract tourists into New York City (Busby, Huang and Jarman, 2013, P.571). In the Park, there are locations where famous movies and Television shows and scenes were acted. These shows and movies include Ghostbusters, Home Alone 2, Spiderman 3, Maid in Manhattan, and Sex in the City (Schofield, 1996, p.334). For destinations, movies not only offer short-term tourism revenue to the destination, but also prosperity. In spite of the rising interest of movie-induced tourism, it has received insufficient attention from scholars and tourism experts (Connell, J., 2012, p.1007). Leisure and recreational activities like watching movies and traveling provide ways of escaping the real world. Both offer short-term reprieve from the real world. Films in Central Park can arouse viewers to travel by the physical properties (the Park’s scenery and landscape) and their associated themes, storylines, events and actors. This shapes the audiences’ feelings and perceptions towards a place (Schofield, 1996, p.334). Audiences’ feelings and perceptions Location of the Park, and film experiences are enhanced in memories by linking them with the actors, events, and context. The world of associations and sentiments are encapsulated in the audience’s minds as recollections and obsessions which provide meaning to locations. In general, locations, such as the Park, together with events and characters, become iconic attractions owing to being given powerful meanings in film narrations (Schofield, 1996, p.334). Tourists have the tendency of visiting certain places based on particular images, memories, associations and emotional attachments to sites and meanings (Kim, 2012, p. 387). In the discipline of fine arts, movies merge plastic arts with dramatic arts. The basic content of filming is drama and motion pictures, which is the direct opposite of other plastic arts like photography and painting. The heroes and heroines in movies adjust their attitudes and statures as their scenic environments change. Thus, movie producers are in a continuous search for appropriate scenes in both urban and natural environments. In most situations, these scenes ought to be pure, idyllic or unique. In all sense, these scenes must be interesting and appropriate for movie shootings. In the entire New York City and its surroundings, most film shooters from different parts of the world select the Park, identifying it as being pure, idyllic, or unique for video shooting in the midst of a busy gigantic city (Schofield, 1996, p.334). In an ideal filming environment, the sceneries of action, relaxation, eroticism and everything that screenplay needs will unfold. It is clear that movie play-writing provides intensity in the settings, whereas the scenes frame the actions and shape the feelings of both the heroes and audiences. The sentiments dispersed to the audiences, are indirect to a significant extent by the action, the heroes, and the contextual setting. Therefore, a powerful movie is produced for the audiences to visit the location, in the framework of their conscious or unconscious identification with the icons of the films. This, given that the backgrounds of the movies are in natural or civil environments (Central Park), amounts to a first-class opportunity of the entire locality (New York City) to be identified as a potential tourist destination (Frost, 2010, p.707) Definition of Movie Tourism Movie tourism is sometimes identified in the world bibliography with terms like film-induced tourism or media-induced tourism. In other cases, it is known as movie induced tourism, cinematographic tourism and media pilgrim. Cinematographic tourists are tourists that visit a location or attraction site for the simple reason that it appeared in a movie, video or television (Busby and Haines, 2013, pp. 105-120). Every year, Central Park accommodates tourists who are interested in viewing the sites of sceneries that they once saw in a movie. In addition, Iwashita asserts that movies, television and literature, are factors that showcase some features and attractiveness of a destination, and as such, may influence the visiting preferences of individuals to the park (Loumioti and Vagionis, 2011, p. 353). Tourism can be described as a post-modern experience for the tourist in a location, which has been depicted in some form of media. Movies thus play a role in attracting tourists into the Park, who then explore New York City. The experiences the visitors have are personalized and unique to every person, since it is dependent upon his own interpretation of the movie images. Movie tourism is the form of tourism that is generated after appearance of a location or attraction in the cinema, video or TV. In an attempt to evaluate this observable fact, they listed four major forms of analysis: the approximation of the unique influence of the film on tourism destination; the establishment of particular types of movie tourists; the assessment of the impacts of movies on the number of incoming tourists and on the lifestyle of residents; and the evaluation of destination marketing actions concerning movie tourism (Loumioti and Vagionis, 2011, p. 353). Process of selection of destinations Individuals always select their tourist destinations based on what they have viewed via famous movie means, such as television and cinema. The process of the impacts brought by the image can be deliberate, unintentional, unplanned, conscious or unconscious. He adds that people read less documents, anything that surfaces in movies and TVs penetrates easily into the social system. The stages of molding a destination image are determined by eight dissimilar factors. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of independent factors such as news and the famous culture (Butler, R.., 2006, p.81). Different experiences from home environment Contrary to the intellectual or fringe culture, which impacts a small proportion of the entire population, the famous culture cements and represents models of communication and consumption for the entire public. Films offer a significant segment of the popular culture. They can ensure important knowledge on a tourist destination, within a short period of time, to many people. With regard to the role of popular culture in molding a destination image, within the structure of tourism, Urry (1990, p.33) affirms that one of the main reasons that encourage tourists to visit a location, is the expectation that these individuals may undergo different experiences from what they could live in their homelands. These expectations are encouraged with tourism attraction practices, such as films, television, literature, magazines and videos. Product placement Morgan and Pritchard (2001, p.33) remark that the force of constructed reality boosts the sovereignty of senses on the objective reality product placement is a marketing approach, and can be described as the planned entry of products into movies or television shows, with the objective of positively influencing the audiences’ perceptions, beliefs or behaviors (Özdemir and Adan, 2014, p.625). Besides, contemporary tourists determine destination images by consuming movies in television, without prejudice that they are promotional instruments (Russell, 2002, P.307). Destination Image Tourists from all parts of the world may have positively shaped the Central Park’s destination image unconsciously by watching movies acted in its sceneries, and not treating it as a promotional tool (Bolan, and Williams, 2008, p.383). This further boosts the tourism image of New York City. Therefore, the destination placement in a movie is the ultimate tourism product placement (Hudson, Youcheng, and Gil, 2011, p. 178). Further, the product placement in a film setting and the subsequent watching by the public is very efficacious as a promotional mode for a tourist destination (Nghiêm-Phú, 2014, p.37). Thus, while traditional advertising of New York City to potential tourists has realized diminishing effectiveness, communication via product placement is better targeted more complex and more broadly received (Busby and Haines, 2013, p. 106). Impacts of Central Park Movie Tourism on New York Scholars investigating the Central-Park effect of movie tourism in New York have spotted a variety of benefits. However, owing to the limited researchers conducted in this arena, these have never been adequately quantified. Due to their association with fame, the movie shooting sites in the Park have made the streets within New York that were considered commonplace and ordinary suddenly attract interest, status and ambience. The same can be said of some elements of natural surrounding and people. There are many tourism benefits flowing in from filming, such as the introduction of organized tours, growth of community festivals, new use of sites, memorabilia sales, and the exposure received by the hotels and guest houses that are visited after seeing the film locations (Riley, Baker and Van Doren, 1998, p. 920). One of the greatest economic benefits and factors of movie induced tourism is that watching past sites can be an all-rear, all-weather attraction, hence expanding out the seasonality intrinsic in many tourist attractions. In addition, both movie and television programs have a wide socio-economic appeal, potentially widening the base of visitor market. New York City administrators acknowledge the promotional benefits of Hollywood movies shot in the Park, such as Romeo and Juliet, and put efforts to capitalize on the images that were being displayed to the international community. Bringing new Businesses into the City Film-induced tourism in Central Park brings new business people into the tourism business in New York. Movie-induced tourism offers some opportunities in this area by introducing other members of the business community to the flowing benefits of movie-induced tourism. Movie tourists who visit Central Park desire to gaze on private sites where current residents live and do their jobs (Saltik, Cosar and Kozak, 2011, p.45). Whereas many urban centers are today being revitalized and developed to accommodate a stronger residential population base within the CBD, New York has normally been a city with a high population of inner-urban apartment occupants, from the rich areas surrounding Central Park, to the struggling boroughs of Harlem and the West Village. As a result of movie tourism, these areas are now getting attention from those who cannot afford the Central Park address. This has resulted in a gentrification of many of the poorer zones of the City (Beeton, 2005a, p.108). Movie tourists in Central Park have shown interest in visiting and viewing other parts of New York City, thereby strengthening tourism in the entire City (OConnor, Flanagan and Gilbert, 2010, p. 115). These attraction sites include the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. This ensures that the City has a place in the minds of millions of both the American immigrants and natives. Other sites that Central Park movie tourists may visit include the theatre of Broadway, the hundreds of movies, musicals, television programs and songs concerning the City, which gives it a predominant place in the hearts of both Americans and foreigners, leading to a firm local and global tourism market (Beeton, 2005a, p.109). On-Location Tours in New York is a film tour business running in the City. It runs pilgrimage-style tours to several sites within the City. Starting previously with a Sex in the City Tour, the single-owned investment operated by Georgette Blau later grew to include other themed tours like the Sopranos Tour as well as generic TV Tour. As one of the few experts in movie tour operations frequently operating in the US, On-Location Tours represents the impact and power of movies to generate what is seen as tremendous business growth. This offers a sound business opportunity (Beeton, 2006b, p.109). Easing seasonality challenges One of the benefits of Central Park movie tourism is its ability to ease the challenges with seasonality in the City. By attracting attention to the area and locations that are not well-known before through films, individuals learn to know them. Film tourists are also not very concerned with the suitable weather patterns. However, the main attractiveness of the destination lies on the filming sites and operations carried out within the films. For that reason, film tourism offers an all-year round and every-weather tourism (Corton and Ebrahimpour, 2014, pp. 1349-1356). Creating Interests in era or style Movies also create interest not only in the filming sites in Central Park, but also in some era or style. This form of movie tourism is nostalgic since historic movies may have a broader influence on visitors. This also promotes a sense of national heritage (Martin-Jones, 2014, p. 156). Visitors who make inquiries and exploration of other areas also can increase after a popularity of a historic movie. In such circumstances, the locations do not have to be featuring in the movies. It is sufficient that they are representative of certain historical era. The most spectacular impact is seen in Beningbrough Hall in New York, where the number of tourists shot up from 10218 to 94032 in 2002 and 2003 respectively. This trend elicits one of the positive attributes of movie-induced tourism. In addition, remote areas witness a visitor boost, hence seen as tourist attraction (Olsberg SPI, 2007, p. 45). Methodology Research Methods used Qualitative research was the method used for collecting data, since it is applied in seeking an in-depth knowledge concerning a given event, as opposed to the surface description of a large sample of population. This research method aims to offer an explicit rendering of the system, order, and wide patterns seen among a set of participants. Qualitative research is sometimes referred to as ethno methodology or field research, since it is used to gather data on human groups in social contexts. These method included interviews, interview coding and observation checklists. Advantages of using qualitative research There are many benefits that come with the use of qualitative research to seek answers into the problems in question. First, qualitative research examines the phenomena in a comprehensive way. Secondly, qualitative research utilizes subjective knowledge concerning the human perspective of an issue, which includes the beliefs, views, emotion, and relations of people. Therefore, its strength lies in its ability to offer sophisticated textual depictions of how individuals experience a particular question. Qualitative research also provides an effectual way of recognizing intangible issues like societal norms and current trends in the tourism sector of the economy. Interviews, Interview Coding, and Observation Checklist Interviews offer an invaluable way of investigating issues in a comprehensive way. Also, interviews help the researchers to find out how people think and feel concerning a topic and why they hold some views. Furthermore, interviews are helpful in the sense that they inform the process of decision making, strategic planning and allotment of resources. Most significantly, they provide a useful approach to discuss sensitive issues that respondents may consider uncomfortable to talk about. Interview Coding Interview codes are developed inductively after collecting data and at the time of data analysis. Codes allow the researcher to make sense in the process of data analysis. When carrying out qualitative research, codes are of importance in generating a general theory. The kind of statistical analysis a researcher can use relies on the kind of data collected, how to gather it, and how it is coded. Coding enhances an organization’s process of retrieving, interpreting data, leading to conclusions on the basis of that interpretation. Codes are helpful in stages of testing a hypothesis, and may be developed when data is gathered. Observation Checklist Observation checklists are means of documenting or recording data collected in observational research. In qualitative research, observation checklists are of importance in recording simple forms of data observed. The advantage of observational checklists is that they can be used in natural environment as opposed to research surroundings. In addition, observational checklists give room for the identification of traits that may not be noticed by the researcher, and may not have been noted by way of interview. Furthermore, they can give room for the identification of behaviors that the respondents may not intend to reveal. Sampling Method Used Purposive sampling, which is a type of non-probability sampling, was the most appropriate sampling procedure applied. In this sampling type, the researcher comes up with a specific angle in thought that he or she intends to evaluate, and looks for research participants. These participants must that entire range of perspectives. For instance, since the research seeks to find out the link between movie tourism in the Park and tourism in the City, it is important to select participants from the local surroundings of the park, the movie tourists themselves, as well as the Park’s management team, to get all their perspectives. How sampling was carried out Since purposive sampling was the most appropriate sampling procedure for the research, 3 types of participants were selected to get their perspective on the effects of the Park’s movie tourism on tourism in New York City. These groups include members of Central Park Board of Trustees, Central Park movie tourists, and the local inhabitants residing within the Park’s surroundings. Thereafter, 20 people from each of the above groups were then selected to take part in the process of data collection. As a result, the research had a total of 60 participants. The people who did the interview, questioning or observation Three people were selected to carry out the interview and note down information observed in the field. One was a male local resident, whose responsibility was to collect opinions and feelings of the local inhabitants concerning the impacts of film tourism in the Park and the entire City’s tourism effects. Another was a woman tour guide, whose responsibility was to collect data among the tourist participants in Central Park. Finally, I was the one directly charged with the responsibility of interviewing the Park’s management team. Limitations of the research Problems faced The main problem faced during the research process was that in the process of seeking some documents from the Park’s Board of Trustees on Movie tourism, it was hard to access them. Since some of those documents were considered confidential by the Board, they had to ask me why I needed them. Additionally, the entire process of mobilizing and approaching participants was tedious, since some were reluctant in taking part in the research. They had to be persuaded to participate. How I overcame these problems Regarding access to the Board’s confidential documents on movie-tourism in the Park, I had to assure the Park’s management team that the documents were solely meant for research purposes, and nothing more. Finally, those who were reluctant in taking part in the research were made aware that the purpose of carrying out the interview was for their own benefit, hence they accepted taking part finally. References Beeton, S., 2006. 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