Massive economic impact of entertainment: Hobbit in New Zealand, Disney in Turkey
(Weekly Blog) New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson shot his blockbuster "Lord of the Rings" trilogy which grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide at box office. The film also provided a massive boost to the local economy of New Zealand in terms of "Tolkien tourism" and also ongoing work for local film and special effects studios, which have since worked on box office hits such as "King Kong" and "Avatar."
Jackson announced his plans to shoot a two-part adaption of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" locally as well. But two weeks ago, Reuters reported that the project's future in New Zealand was in doubt after actors' unions boycotted working on "The Hobbit" and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros started looking for alternative locations for the estimated $500 million production.
But soon after economists at New Zealand's largest bank ANZ-National estimated that flow-on economic effects from the film could be as much as $1.5 billion, the New Zealand Prime Minister John Key stepped in and resolved the issues to ensure the country will be production host to the movie, said to be most expensive in film industry.
The intervention by a Head of State points out to the ever-increasing economic significance of the film and entertainment industry in the world. Companies like Disney can make or break local economies through their film and theme park investments. Disney annually draws about $20 Billion in revenues from its film and theme park businesses, but contributes many times more (indirectly) to local economies. For example, Disneyland, which was established more than 50 years ago in a suburb of Los Angeles, California, contributes an estimated $4 Billion in annual revenues and 66000 jobs to the local economy. This is despite expensive tickets 9too expensive in my opinion!) and long lines (too long in my opinion!).
In 2005, theme and amusement parks in the U.S. alone, attracted nearly 350 million visitors (more than U.S. population) and generated more than $11 Billion in revenues. European and Asian theme/amusement parks are each nearly half as large as U.S. but also flourishing.
Last year, Turkey’s Hurriyet daily reported that Turkey is to build a Disneyland resort in the Mugla Province near the town of Oren. Disneyland Turkey will be larger than Eurodisney Paris. Construction will take 2 years, and is expected to cost $3.2 billion. The park will be built over an area of 1.3m square metres and will employ 17,000 staff. The park is expected to attract large number of tourists from Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. The tourism revenues generated by Disneyland in Turkey is expected to be more than income generated by Hajj (spiritual Islamic pilgrimage) for Saudi Arabia.
Would Iran one day also consider drawing income not from building expensive gas and oil pipelines but from entertaining people? There seems to be a lot of "clean" money to be made in "making people and families" happy. And it will not be affected easily by an embargo either!
Related: New Harry Potter theme park turning away overweight people from ride
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