Tourists flock to game of thrones filming locations
Dunluce Castle, Northern Ireland Photo: Anosmia
Tourists are flocking to visit the filming locations from popular TV series Game of Thrones.
The show, which reaches the end of its fifth season next week, has been boosting tourist interest in a range of countries ever since its first broadcast. The fantasy epic, based on George RR Martin's novels, began shooting in Northern Ireland in 2010. Now, County Antrim is enjoying the Game of Thrones effect more than ever.
Searches on TripAdvisor for the county - which is home to the Greyjoys (Dunluce Castle), Castle Black (Magheramore Quarry) and the Kingsroad - surged 65 per cent in the past 12 months, according to the site's latest data, almost double the increase of second place Bristol.
Other countries, though, are also enjoying a wind of interest from Westeros fans. Dubrovnik in Croatia, which replaced Malta as the location of choice for King's Landing, has enjoyed growing interest, as has Ouarzazate in Morocco.
The latest season, meanwhile, has also been shot in and around Seville, with the Alcázar Palace and the bullring in the nearby town of Osuna featured prominently, leading to a considerable boost in tourism in the region.
Figures from Skyscanner reveal a 107 per cent increase in searches for Seville by foreign tourists following the airing of the first episodes of the fifth season, compared with figures for the previous year.
Overall, tourism figures in Andalucía are up 9.6 per cent during Q1 2015 compare with the same period in 2014, with the Andalucían Tourism Situation Survey recording a total of 4.27 million visitors during the quarter.
Spain is a country that has already been the location for TV series Mad Dogs, which was filmed on the Balearic Island of Mallorca, and biblical epic Clavius, filmed in Andalucía.
Marc Pritchard, Sales and Marketing Director of leading Spanish homebuilder Taylor Wimpey España, also welcomed rising interest in the Mallorca property market, alongside the Marbella Film Festival.