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Over the past decade or so, set-jetting – aka travelling to a destination after being inspired by film or TV – has reached new heights.
Game of Thrones sent hundreds of thousands of people to Dubrovnik, aka King’s Landing. Crash Landing on You made the tiny Swiss village of Iseltwald a must-visit for fans. Each season of The White Lotus brings hoards of tourists to the locale in question, from Taormina to Thailand.
It can be difficult to predict where the next big surge will be, particularly in the age of streaming when there are dozens of new shows and films released each week.
Enter: The Screen Tourism Forecast Index 2026.
Created by Holafly, the index makes use of four weighted dimensions to create a Screen Tourism Forecast Score (STFS) out of 100 to predict which destinations are most likely to experience a surge of tourists thanks to film and TV releases in 2026.
Dimensions include:
- the content momentum score, which looks at the size of the audience and its cultural gravity
- the location iconicity score, aka how inseparable the destination is from the production (like how the fifth character in Sex and the City is New York itself)
- the demand signal index, which looks at travel demand for the destination
- the absorption capacity score, which is whether or not the destination can receive the forecasted surge based on international air routes and accommodation supplyTL;DR: The index asks things like how many people are watching, is it going viral, is this spot clearly filmed on-site not a studio, and does it have the infrastructure like a nearby airport and hotels to make it an appealing, easy place to visit?
So, after all that number crunching, there’s one clear winner.
Drum roll, please.
The next big set-jetting destinations in 2026
The Korean Wave shows no signs of slowing down, and South Korea is set to see another surge of tourists according to the Screen Tourism Forecast Index.
All of Us Are Dead season one has the second-highest viewership record in Netflix non-English history, and with season two set to release in either Q4 this year or Q1 2027, set-jetters are likely to be booking tickets to Seoul.
Season two takes the cast from a high school into the city’s streets and university campuses, meaning there are plenty of photo opportunities for fans.
According to Holafly, South Korea is the “only destination in the index where screen tourism has already become a structural pillar of the national economy rather than a periodic event spike”.
The Korea Culture and Tourism Institute (KCTI) regression study has shown that countries where a Korean streaming show reaches number one experience an average +106.3% increase in inbound traveller volume from those markets.
South Korea topped the list with a STFS score of 87.6 out of 100.
Next up on the index is Spain thanks to the release of House of the Dragon season three.
Game of Thrones has already sent thousands of tourists to Spain – Osuna arrivals were up 70% year-on-year after it featured in season five, while San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, aka Dragonstone, now sees 415,000 visitors annually – so there’s a good chance this will be repeated in the coming year.
Given Spain is already a massively popular tourism destination, the spike won’t be seen in arrival levels, but instead will be felt by medieval inland cities like Cáceres and Ourense, Holafly has predicted.
Spain’s STFS score was 78.0 out of 100.
One of the biggest movie releases this year is Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which is hitting IMAX screens on 17 July.
Unsurprisingly, Greece has also made it into the Screen Tourism Forecast Index’s top 10, placing number five with an STFS score of 61.0.
That’s thanks to its location iconicity score, as the “Homeric narrative is so inseparable from Greek geography that even a multi-country shoot cannot sever the associative link”, and the fact that millions of people have watched the movie trailers after their release.
Holafly predicts that both the Peloponnese coastal sites where Nolan filmed and spots that evoke the time period will see a boost in visitor numbers.
With the launch of the Peloponnese Trails, which cover 1,700 kilometres, this summer, we’re inclined to agree with the prediction.
The top 10 destinations most likely to see a set-jetting travel surge in 2026
- South Korea – All of Us Are Dead season two
- Spain – House of the Dragon season three
- Ireland – Wednesday season two
- Thailand – Jurassic World Rebirth
- Greece – The Odyssey
- Sicily – The Odyssey
- Glasgow – Spider-Man: Brand New Day
- South Africa – Mission: Impossible 8
- Jordan – Dune: Prophecy season two
- Czechia – Blade Runner 2099
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