Author Bios (50 Words for each Author)

ShiNa Li, PhD, is Reader in the International Centre for Research in Events, Tourism and Hospitality at Leeds Beckett University. She has a background in tourism economics and her research interests are mainly in the areas of tourism and events impact evaluation, mega events and CGE modelling. She has published in journals such as Annals of Tourism Research, Economic Modelling, and Tourism Economics.

Hengyun Li is Ph.D. Candidate in School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management at University of South Carolina. His major research interests are in economics, marketing, and big data analysis in hospitality and tourism management. His publications have appeared in the journals, such as Annals of Tourism Research and Journal of Travel Research.

Haiyan Song, PhD, is chair professor of tourism in the School of Hotel and Tourism management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He has a background in tourism economics and his research interests are mainly in the areas of tourism demand forecasting and impact assessment. He has published widely in such journals as Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research and Journal of Travel Research.

Christine Lundberg, PhD, holds a position as senior lecturer at the University of Surrey. She is also an Associate Professor at Mid Sweden University. Her research focuses primarily on popular culture tourism and she is the co-founder of the research network POPCULTOUR which explores tourism in the wake of popular culture phenomena.

Shujie Shen, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Methods in the Department of Economics and Quantitative Methods (EQM) at the University of Westminster. She has a background in tourism economics and her research interests are mainly in the areas of econometric modelling and forecasting, demand analysis and cost analysis. She has published in journals such as Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel Research, and Transport Policy.

Abstract (150 Words)

Film tourism, also known as popular culture tourism, is tourism in the wake of film shows. Research literature contains no established and accepted method for measuring the economic effects of film tourism. This paper takes the first step to evaluate the overall economic impacts of film tourism, with a particular focus on the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit filmed in New Zealand. A new approach that combines both econometric and computable general equilibrium modeling techniques is used in the impact assessment. The preliminary results show that the Lord of the Rings did not bring any significant impacts on the tourism and economy of New Zealand mainly due to its lack of appropriate marketing strategies. The Hobbit film, on the other hand, was found to have brought significant positive impacts on the New Zealand economy through film induced tourism.

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The Economic Impact of Film Tourism: The Case of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit

Film tourism, also known as popular culture tourism, is tourism in the wake of film shows. Research literature contains no established and accepted method for measuring the economic effects of film tourism. This paper takes the first step to evaluate the overall economic impacts of film tourism, with a particular focus on the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit filmed in New Zealand. A new approach that combines both econometric and computable general equilibrium modeling techniques is used in the impact assessment. The preliminary results show that the Lord of the Rings did not bring any significant impacts on the tourism and economy of New Zealand mainly due to its lack of appropriate marketing strategies. The Hobbit film, on the other hand, was found to have brought significant positive impacts on the New Zealand economy through film induced tourism.