Have you ever watched a movie and thought, you know what i would love to travel there? Although you won’t be jumping on the next train to ‘Hogwarts’ as seen in the Harry Potter movies you can easily jump on the next plane to Madagascar after watching the brilliant Madagascar - Escape 2 Africa. Movies and TV shows have a habit of making even the most hostile places on earth seem appealing, as shown in the new BBC series ‘Frozen Planet’ which was mainly filmed in the Arctic and Antarctic.

When you saw the Lion King for the first time did it make you want to jump on the first plane to Africa and head out on a Kenya safari to see the wildlife in the movie in real life? Holiday makers unsure of where to travel abroad can often be persuaded by television shows or movies as they depict destinations one cannot comprehend and certainly not visualise. Believe it or not bookings to both the Arctic and the Antarctic have slowly risen following the airing of Frozen Planet which had an audience of around 16 million viewers.

Many movies that we have forgotten about seem to reappear on our screens over Christmas giving us a good idea of the sort of destination we would like to visit next year whether that’s a Namibia safari after watching the movie ‘Africa United’ or whether it’s a trip to Antarctica after watching the adorable penguins strut their stuff in Happy Feet. Movie tourism is big business in many parts of the world and can even spark of a general interest in an activity depicted from a movie. Take King Kong for example, more and more people wanted to challenge themselves to climb a mountain, even though he only climbs the Empire State Building in the movie. People look to the most accessible mountain and for many to climb Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is not just the challenge of a lifetime but it’s an experience they may never get to do again.

Movie tourism is only set to get bigger and bigger with filming locations now becoming much more widespread and diverse from the Sahara desert to the Himalayan Mountains. This diversity opens up the world to more people, giving them and opportunity and a reason to see what’s happening on the other side of the globe.