Game of Thrones and Chernobyl inspire European tourism boom

Game of Thrones provided high-quality entertainment for people all over the world, but was an especial blessing in places like Northern Ireland and Iceland, which it filmed many scenes over the years. Thanks to the show, fans continue to flock to these European destinations to experience the show up close.

Take, for example, the street known as the Dark Hedges in Northern Ireland, which was used as the Kingsroad in the first season of the show. Granted, the press of tourists can accelerate the erosion of these amazing sites, but they keep coming anyway.

Speaking of Northern Ireland, Tourism Ireland is getting ready for the 148th Open later this month, and decided to make a huge piece of sand art celebrating  So, they decided to create giant sand art celebrating some of the best things about their country, including Game of Thrones. It’s pretty remarkable seeing the House Stark sigil on a bed of sand with the ocean water just inches away:

And Northern Ireland isn’t the only place that benefits from Game of Thrones tourism. Locations in Croatia, specifically Dubrovnik, have also been a go-to spot for tourists hoping to walk in the footsteps of Cersei Lannister during her Walk of Shame. Forbes reports that Croatia brought in in a whopping 750,000 tourists in 2017. It got so crazy, in fact, that a limit had to be placed on the number of tourists who could actually enter Dubrovnik’s Old City per day. It might be inconvenient for the locals, but all those people spending money has got to put smiles on the faces of the merchants.

Side note: If you couldn’t make it into Dubrovnik’s Old City, you could consider applying to be guests to win a place on a Game of Thrones cruise courtesy of Cruise Croatia. Or at least you could back in June when they were still taking entries, but if all goes well perhaps there will be another drawing to look forward to. There’s certainly a market for it.

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Another HBO series, Chernobyl, has also inspired tourism, this time in Ukraine here. After the show aired, IndieWire reported that tourism went up a whopping 40%! I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m hoping that they give you full-on radiation suits for protection. That stuff is still radioactive!

Whether you’re going to these locations to experience the culture, breath the same air as Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke, or just looking to get the perfect Insta picture, you’re one of the many that are helping the tourism industry. But let’s remember to be nice and preserve these natural landscapes — we don’t want them dwindling away ahead of their time.

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h/t MediaPost