How Game of Thrones’ prequel is set to boost Spain’s tourism: House of the Dragon had scenes filmed in Cáceres‎ – home to a Unesco site – which is predicted to attract fantasy fan tourists in droves

Nov 1 , 2022

House of Dragon is set to boost Spain’s tourism industry. Photo: Spain Tourism, handout

Spain prepares for TV tourism to take flight as House of the Dragon draws visitors to Cáceres‎, a location for the fantasy drama’s first season released in 2022

Just like Harry Potter ‘Potterheads’ and Star Trek ‘Trekkies’, GoT has built a fan base known as ‘Thronies’, with many making trips to see the show’s filming sites

Fantasy film and television has long drawn in loyal fan bases, from Trekkies (Star Trek) to Potterheads (Harry Potter) and, more recently, Thronies. And those looking to truly immerse themselves in the whim and wonder of their favourite fantasy realms have travelled near and far to immerse themselves deeper in the stories.

According to a report compiled by the Travelstart Competitive Index, in 2018 more than 80 million people cited films and television series as a key factor influencing their travel destination choices.

A Game of Thrones tour experience in Ireland. Photo: Game of Thrones Tours/Facebook

This has often proven the case for Rob Dowling, an accredited tour guide, and managing director of Game of Thrones Tours. After watching the first season, Dowling noticed many familiar sites across Northern Ireland, “from Tollymore Forest Park where the Starks find the direwolf pups, to the Old Castle Ward used as a film location for Winterfell in the first episode, and so on. Those locations were in County Down, which was a part of Ireland very few tourists visited back in 2012”. With no further inspiration needed, Dowling informed HBO of his plans and the first Game of Thrones Tour excursion took place in April 2014.

British Game of Thrones fans Declan Blakey (centre) and Katherine Hibberd (right) and French fan Hugo Chivard (left) take part in the tourist experience at the Castle Ward Estate in Strangford, Northern Ireland, in April 2019, the location of Winterfell in Game of Thrones, and one of the many locations used by the hit HBO show across the province. Photo: AFP

“TV tourists want to make an authentic connection to the show they love. That could mean visiting the real filming locations used for iconic scenes, or that could mean visiting real sets or, most of all, that could mean meeting and talking to a guide who worked on the show,” said Dowling. “All of our guides were extras in Game of Thrones, they all appeared on screen. The keyword is authentic contact with the show.”

Between 2014 and 2019, Dowling’s tours operated on average 21 times per week in the summer months and 11 tours per week in the winter months. While numbers inevitably declined due to the pandemic, a recovery is in sight, and 2022 figures are averaging between seven and eight coach tours each week.

Trujillo in Extremadura, Spain, is one of the main filming locations for the new HBO series, House of the Dragon. Photo: Shutterstock

Film and television tourism looks set to take off on a global scale. A report from Future Market Insights estimated the industry to be worth US$66.7 billion in 2022 and projected its value to grow to more than US$128 billion by 2032. And one of the latest destinations to benefit might be Cáceres‎, a city in Spain’s Western reaches that has served as the filming location for several scenes from HBO’s new Game of Thrones spin-off series, House of the Dragon.

House of the Dragon is a spin-off series of Game of Thrones. Photo: Handout

A city of just under 100,000 people, Cáceres‎ wears its history with pride, its streets a mix of Gothic, Renaissance and ancient Roman architecture. The city lies within historic Moorish walls that date back to the 12th century. Jorge Villar Guijarro, councillor for tourism, innovation, technological development and transparency in Cáceres‎, described it as “a city with more than 2,000 years of history in which cultures and religions are mixed, and in which walking through its squares and streets and admiring its buildings make the visitor go back in time”.