Tourism Economics, 2014, 20 (6), 1349–1356 doi: 10.5367/te.2013.0339 Research note: Forecasting film-induced tourism – the Dolphin Tale case MARIA LUISA CORTON AND MALING EBRAHIMPOUR Kate Tiedemann College of Business, University of South Florida Saint Petersburg, 140 7th Avenue South, Saint Petersburg, FL 33701, USA. E-mail: mcorton@mail.usf.edu. (Corresponding author: Maria Luisa Corton.) Dolphin Tale is a major motion picture released by Warner Brothers in 2011. The authors forecast the number of visitors to the film location, including the film-induced tourism effect originated by Dolphin Tale. They use intervention analysis to measure this effect, with the pre-film series forecasted trend as the comparison baseline instead of the usual linear trend. They address the proper modelling of the series seasonality in the presence of an abrupt increase in visitors immediately after the premiere and a lack of data on the subsequent months. They find that the film induced a 51% increase in the mean level of visitors to the location. Keywords: time series analysis; intervention analysis; SARIMA mod- els; structural models; seasonality; film-induced tourism JEL classification: C220; C530 ; L830 Dolphin Tale is a major motion picture, released by Warner Brothers in Sept- ember 2011. The film includes factors motivating film-induced tourism, such as authenticity, place feasibility, social setting and human relationships among others (see a review on this literature in Buchmann et al, 2010). Film-induced tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of the tourism industry. The term is defined by Beeton (2005, p 9) as ‘tourists visiting a destination or an attraction as a result of the destination being featured on television, video, DVD, or the cinema screen’. The release of the Dolphin Tale originated an 80% increase in visitation numbers to its production location, Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA), from 2010 to 2011. The objective of this study is to forecast visitation numbers to CMA, including the film-induced effect stemming from the release of Dolphin Tale. We use intervention analysis to identify, quantify and examine the form of the This study would not have been possible without the valuable information, time and attention provided by David Yates, CEO of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. The authors gratefully acknow- ledge the Clearwater Marine Aquarium’s Board of Directors for providing the historical data on visitors.