Audience involvement and film tourism experiences: Emotional places, emotional experiences

Film tourism – Evolution, progress and prospects

“…Kim (2012b) also established that the emotional involvement was "an immediate antecedent" of many aspects of the film tourist destination experience. Furthermore, some research studies support the idea that higher level emotional involvement creates high level of satisfaction with on-site experiences (Carl et al 2009;Kim 2012). Couldry (1998) and Kim (2010) emphasises the degree of emotional investment placed in watching soap operas.…”

“…Subsequent to these initial discussions, a small number of initial scoping and exploratory studies emerged, most significantly that of Riley and van Doren (1992), Tooke and Baker (1996) and Riley, Baker and van Doren (1998) the field for presenting too much case study material, the findings of which are not necessarily generalisable, transferable or applicable beyond those case study destinations, with some notable exceptions (Buchmann, Moore and Fisher 2010;Karpovich 2010;Kim 2012), few have grappled with the contributing conceptual frameworks to explore the intellectual underpinnings of the subject. In fact, no studies of film tourism have adopted a comparative research methodology as advocated in tourism research by Pearce (1993).…”

“…just happen to be at the destination) but increasing evidence, especially from UK research (see Olsberg|SPI 2007), implies that huge increases in visitors correspond with film and television showcasing, indicating that the importance of film as a tourism attractor should not be underestimated. Indeed, some studies identify purposeful visitors, particularly in the case of Daejanggeum (Kim 2012) and Balamory (Connell 2005), who are unlikely to have visited a destination for another reason, and, as in sport and music, such visitors may be considered as fans of a particular production.…”

“…The notion of fandom in film and film tourism is based in the emotional involvement between the viewer and the 'viewed', and a number of studies highlight this mediated personal relationship (Couldry 1998;Lee and Yoo 2011;Kim 2012), and following celebrities (Lee, Scott and Kim 2008;Grenier 2011;Ricci 2011). This emotional interaction needs to be examined within the framework of the experiences of film tourists.…”

“…Couldry (1998) and Kim (2010) emphasises the degree of emotional investment placed in watching soap operas. In terms of the study of audience involvement, Kim (2012) outlines the multi-dimensional nature of audience involvement and in a study of a Korean television drama, argues that cognitive involvement is not as significant as emotional and behavioural involvement in influencing on-site tourism experiences. This type of emerging research on the social psychology of film tourism is a welcome step forward in producing more in-depth explanations of the link between film and tourism.…”