ABSTRACT This paper identifies the integration of film induced tourism and destination branding on destinations featured in television series’ such as Yorkshire, which is the film location for many popular English television series’. The review of the existing literature identified a gap in previous investigations and in response, a tourist survey and strategic conversations with the key stakeholders were an initial attempt to fill this gap. The issues which arose from these and the literature review highlighted some implications for the future development of these destinations, namely the use of destination branding in the promotion of a film location. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 5 April 2007; Revised 21 February 2008; Accepted 11 March 2008 Keywords: film-induced tourism; branding; Yorkshire; stakeholder. INTRODUCTION T he current British series Last of the Summer Wine has been screened on British tele- vision since 1973 (Mordue, 2001). As a result, the audiences’ relationship with the story characteristics and setting is developed over time. This keeps the destination where the series is filmed in the audiences’ minds, sup- porting the motivation to visit. Television series usually have more long-term impacts than film, unless the film is extremely popular such as Crocodile Dundee (1986). According to Beeton, this film shot in Australia provided immedi- ate destination recognition in the USA (Beeton, 2005, p. 11). The main objective of this paper is to investigate the level of integration of film- induced tourism 1 and destination branding in a tourism destination such as Yorkshire, UK. This paper draws on a mixed method empiri- cal work utilising tourist surveys and strategic conversations with tourists and stakeholders within a case study approach, focusing on one tourism location, specifically Yorkshire. BACKGROUND LITERATURE In the midst of some notable exceptions (Tooke and Baker, 1996; Riley et al., 1998; Busby and Klug, 2001; Beeton, 2005; Connell, 2005a, 2005b; Fernandez-Young and Young, 2006, pp. 126–127) most of the tourism-orientated literature on film-induced tourism consists of unsubstantiated statements on the economic importance of film-induced tourism. Several films are based on books (Haworth and the Brontë sisters), as are a high percentage of television series. Many anecdotal studies are cited in Tooke and Baker’s (1996) work, which considers four case studies from British tele- vision: To the Manor Born (1979–1991); By the Sword Divided (1983–1985); Middlemarch (1984); and Heartbeat (1994–present). They also refer to Cadfael (1994–1998), a historical detective Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH Int. J. Tourism Res. 10, 423–437 (2008) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.676 The Integration of Film-induced Tourism and Destination Branding in Yorkshire, UK Noelle O’Connor 1, *, Sheila Flanagan 2 and David Gilbert 3 1 Limerick Institute of Technology, School of Business and Humanities, Moylish Park Limerick, Ireland 2 Dublin Institute of Technology, School of Hospitality Management and Tourism, Dublin, Ireland 3 University of Surrey, School of Management, Surrey, UK *Correspondence to: N. O’Connor, Limerick Institute of Technology, School of Business and Humanities, Moylish Park, Limerick, Ireland. E-mail: noelle.oconnor@lit.ie 1 Film-induced tourism is the collective term used for the study of tourist visits to a destination or attraction as a result of the destination being featured on the cinema screen, DVD, television or on video (Hudson and Ritchie, 2006a; 256).