Film Nevada–SetJetters partnership turns a single scene into measurable tourism
'Netflix tourism' term emerges in Korea
Korea ranks #2 (13.5%) as overseas filming destination for U.S. TV, foreign productions in Seoul up 164% over a decade — but no measurement infrastructure
"They're buying plane tickets to see what they watched on Netflix."
The global film and streaming-tourism market has been growing at an annual rate of 7–8% since the mid-2020s, with forecasts placing it above $100 billion by the mid-2030s.
A single series produced by a streaming platform now lifts the visibility of a city or country and translates directly into tourism demand and airline and hotel revenue — a phenomenon the industry is settling into as 'streaming tourism,' a new category of the global travel industry.
Even ahead of this streaming wave, screen tourism — the practice of visiting filming locations — was already being elevated globally as a formal policy domain.
Film Nevada, the U.S. state's official film commission, recently signed a partnership with SetJetters, a global filming-location exploration app, launching a pilot to capture and analyze the fan interest sparked by on-screen scenes as actual visit data.
Jung Han
In Korea, as Netflix produces dozens of original K-content titles annually, the term 'Netflix tourism' has emerged — describing the travel trend of visiting Korean cities and tourist sites that viewers first saw on the platform. Industry experts argue that for this rising Netflix tourism to take root and grow further, Korea needs a data infrastructure capable of measuring how much it actually contributes to inbound tourism and regional economies.
▶ Nevada Steps Up: Screen Tourism as Policy
Under the partnership, the SetJetters app is being seeded with a large new layer of Nevada-shot scene data, and a gamified system rewards a digital badge to users who visit all 12 selected scenes across the Las Vegas area. As of the announcement, more than 60,000 users were already exploring Nevada on the platform organically.
The substantive change is the activation of a single pipeline — title → coordinate → visit → measurement. Every GPS-confirmed arrival generates an 'arrival data point,' producing the first policy dataset capable of measuring which titles actually convert into physical visits. SetJetters CEO Erik Nachtrieb framed the shift as a transition from "destination marketing to destination storytelling."
Nevada's deal with SetJetters is part of a full-stack film-industry policy. Film Nevada was established as the Division of Motion Pictures in 1982 and rebranded from Nevada Film Office to Film Nevada in 2025. It operates three service lines: LOCATIONS (filming-location database), CREW & SERVICES (production-crew directory), and INCENTIVES (the film tax credit program).
Notably, the Nevada film commission has expanded its courtship of streaming platforms in step with the shift in content distribution. As a result, streaming productions filmed in Nevada are rising fast.
Netflix's Obliterated (Nov 2023), made by the Cobra Kai team, was primarily produced in Albuquerque, NM, but shut down the Las Vegas Strip on location for car-chase and explosion sequences. Netflix's legal drama The Lincoln Lawyer shot the character Cisco's Las Vegas motorcycle ride — past the Bellagio fountain and the Flamingo's hot-pink neon — on the actual Strip.
▶ From a $66B Market to a Projected $145B — and the Rise of 'Netflix Tourism'
As streaming services expand globally, the screen-tourism market continues to grow. Travelers visiting cities and countries specifically to see filming locations they encountered through streaming services are rising rapidly.
Industry estimates put the global screen-tourism market at $66 billion in 2025 and project it at $145 billion by 2035 — a CAGR of 8.2% that ranks among the fastest-growing single-category tourism segments.
Streaming services led by Netflix are driving that growth. When a global streamer launches a title, local filming locations get worldwide exposure simultaneously, locking in a structure where a single scene becomes a viable travel motivator. Post-pandemic travel demand has shifted from generic scenery to narrative-driven experience, and mature location-based mobile (GPS) technology now connects the screen moment to the physical site in real time. Most recently, dropping a drama background into an AI chatbot returns real-time information on the actual filming location.
Expedia's 2024 Unpack report found that roughly two-thirds of global travelers had considered visiting a place because they saw it on screen. Expedia named set-jetting one of the top travel trends for 2026, with 53% of respondents reporting their desire to take a set-jetting trip had increased.
The term itself is not new. 'Set-jetting' first appeared in a 2007 New York Post column. But the streaming era detonated the category, and the industry has begun talking about it under a new name — 'Netflix Tourism,' or 'the Cinema Effect.'
▶ Wednesday, Bridgerton, White Lotus — How One Scene Moves Tourism
The most-cited case is Netflix's Wednesday: inbound tourism to Romania jumped 156% after the show launched, and destination searches rose 150% over the same period. Stranger Things S4 drove a 680% surge in inbound demand to Lithuania; the historic prison used in production was converted into themed accommodations.
Bridgerton's Castle Howard saw a 3,400% jump in 18–24-year-old website visits, and the city of Bath captured £1.5 million in direct tourism revenue. HBO's White Lotus Season 1 produced a 386% spike in availability checks at Maui's Four Seasons.
Korean drama is reinforcing Netflix tourism. Crash Landing on You sent waves of Asian travelers to Switzerland's Grindelwald and Iseltwald. The Lord of the Rings franchise lifted New Zealand's annual visitors from 1.7 million in 2000 to 2.4 million in 2004 — a 40% increase over four years.
That the category has crossed into industry-standard territory is signaled by the Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI) publishing a Best Practice Guide to Screen Tourism with SetJetters in 2025, positioning the framework as a standard operating model for film commissions and DMOs.
▶ Korea, a Lead Player in Netflix Tourism
Korea, on the other side, is now at the center of Netflix tourism. As Korea has emerged as a top overseas filming destination for global streamers, the on-screen exposure of Korean places has risen alongside.
Per Luminate Film & TV data, Korea accounted for 13.5% of overseas filming destinations for U.S. TV productions in 2022–2025, ranking second only to Canada (21.7%). The number of U.S. TV titles filmed in Korea over the period averaged more than 40 per year, well ahead of the United Kingdom (10.4%) and India (5.8%). The data shows Korea has moved beyond producing K-content to become a primary production base for global streaming platforms — a shift led by Netflix.
Asian countries combined — Korea (13.5%), Japan (4.8%), and India (5.8%) — accounted for 24.1% of overseas filming destinations for U.S. TV productions in the same period, with Korea alone holding more than half of that share. The trend strengthened in 2024 and 2025, indicating sustained growth in Korean-location preference among Netflix, Apple TV+, and other global platforms.
Productions filmed in Korea are rising fast and diversifying in genre. Per MBC News (May 2, 2026), the number of foreign productions filmed in Seoul reached 28 in 2025, up 164% from a decade ago. Seoul's role on screen has shifted from generic backdrop to cultural anchor — a hub of K-pop, food, and youth culture — and as a core plot driver.
The case list keeps growing. Netflix's XO, Kitty, featuring a Korean-American teenager at a Seoul international school, has run three seasons with Cheonggyecheon as a recurring location. Last month an Indian-language film whose Korean title translates as Back in Seoul topped Netflix's global non-English chart for two consecutive weeks; its protagonist leaves a patriarchal environment for Korea, makes kimchi in a small restaurant, and recommits to a new life by Cheonggyecheon.
Netflix Brazil released My Korean Boyfriend in January, a reality format placing Brazilian women on dates with Korean men in Seoul. The new season of the Emmy-winning Beef features Yoon Yuh-jung and Song Kang-ho on Korean golf courses and Seoul streets. Britain's Guardian recently reported that Korean culture has, in effect, surpassed the United States in cultural pull on young Latin Americans.
The problem is that while foreign visitors taking photos on Cheonggyecheon's stepping stones are now a daily sight, the system that records who watched what and visited where simply does not exist in Korea. The work-coordinate-visit-measurement pipeline that SetJetters operates in Nevada has not yet been built on top of Korean content IP.
▶ What Korea Is Missing — Data, App, KPI
Mapped onto Korea, the gap is unambiguous. K-content has already produced global travel demand visible at Cheonggyecheon, Hongdae, and Gangnam. But the system layer that converts that flow into policy KPIs is missing.
First, no standardized filming-location metadata schema (titles, scenes, coordinates, rights, subtitle languages). Nevada's LOCATIONS database links every filming site to title, scene, and GPS coordinates and feeds the SetJetters app in real time.
In Korea, scenes such as Cheonggyecheon in XO, Kitty or the small restaurant in Back in Seoul reach global audiences, but no public or private system manages those as a structured dataset. The City of Suwon launched a 'Filming-Location Database Project' in March 2026 — standardizing on-site photos, video, and infrastructure information such as power, parking, and permits — but this is a municipal pilot, not a national integrated platform.
Second, no app-level conversion layer connected to global streaming viewing data — no SetJetters-equivalent. SetJetters measures "title → coordinate → arrival" every time a Netflix viewer visits an on-screen location with GPS. The Korea Tourism Organization or the Seoul Metropolitan Government can track rising foreign-tourist numbers, but cannot tell which Netflix title brought a given visitor to Cheonggyecheon.
Scotland recorded screen-tourism expenditure rising from £64.9 million in 2019 to £161.4 million in 2023 — a 148% jump — generating £89.4 million in direct GVA (gross value added) and supporting 2,260 jobs. Without measurement, neither investment priority nor content-IP valuation is possible.
Third, no formal KPI for the visit→stay→spend conversion chain inside tourism and culture policy. Nevada has gamified its 12 SetJetters scene visits as digital badges and designed the pipeline that converts those into longer Las Vegas stays and increased lodging and food spending. AFCI's 2025 Best Practice Guide to Screen Tourism named "visitor-volume management, sustainable infrastructure development, and community revenue-sharing models" as core policy elements.
Korea measures the tourism effect Crash Landing on You created in Switzerland but cannot quantify the effect XO, Kitty has generated in Seoul.
Korea faces the decisive challenge on the demand-side conversion layer. A platform like SetJetters can measure and monetize the tourism value of Korean content IP outside Korea first. When an XO, Kitty viewer GPS-checks in at Cheonggyecheon through the SetJetters app, that data ends up owned by a U.S. company.
Over the next decade of Netflix tourism, the winners are unlikely to be "countries with content alone" but "countries with both the content and the measurement-conversion infrastructure." Korea is the No. 2 overseas filming destination for U.S. TV productions and already holds the hardest asset — global content IP.
But absent a system to measure and KPI-ize the tourism conversion that asset generates, the upside of the projected $145 billion market will accrue to the platform companies that own the apps and the regions that partner with them. It is time to lay the pipeline that connects the screen to Korea's streets.
[Sources]
· GOED (Nevada), 'Film Nevada Partners with SetJetters' press release. https://goed.nv.gov/
· Tourism Review (2025.10.26, Larry Brain), 'Set-Jetting: Series and Films Boost International Tourism'. https://www.tourism-review.com/international-tourism-benefits-from-set-jetting-news15156
· National Geographic, 'The perks—and pitfalls—of letting TV and films inspire your trip' (Expedia 'Unpack 2024'). https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/set-jetting-white-lotus-trip-planning-tv-movies
· NZ Herald, 'Film tourism boom: The dark side of set-jetting'. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/film-tourism-boom-the-dark-side-of-set-jetting-to-screen-locations/EZQK6A5JR5DK7EZHROZMDXUU5M/
· SALT Agency, 'How hit shows are reshaping British tourism'. https://salt.agency/blog/cinema-effect-british-tourism/
· Wikipedia, 'Film tourism'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_tourism
· Travel & Tour World, 'Exploring the Impact of Set-Jetting Tourism'. https://www.travelandtourworld.com/news/article/exploring-the-impact-of-set-jetting-tourism-on-popular-tv-and-film-locations-and-how-destinations-worldwide-are-managing-overcrowding-and-sustainability/
· AFCI, 'Best Practice Guide to Screen Tourism' (2025, with SetJetters). https://afci.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/AFCI-BEST-PRACTICE-Guide-to-Screen-Tourism.pdf
· Luminate, 'TV show production in 2025 shrank by a third since 2022 peak' (Korea ranked #2 at 13.5%, 40+ shows annually). https://luminatedata.com/reports/ / https://indiantelevision.com/television/tv-shows/reality/luminate-research-reveals-tv-production-in-2025-shrank-by-a-third-since-2022-peak-260126
· Screen Scotland / Saffery LLP & Nordicity, 'The Economic Value of the Screen Sector in Scotland in 2023' (£161.4M screen tourism, £89.4M GVA, 2,260 jobs). https://www.screen.scot/news/2025/october/new-research-shows-scotlands-screen-sector-on-course-to-contribute-one-billion-to-scottish-economy
· VisitScotland, 'CEO welcomes rise in value of screen tourism'. https://www.visitscotland.org/news/2025/press-statement-visitscotland-ceo-welcomes-rise-in-value-of-screen-tourism
· MBC News (2026.5.2), Lim So-jung, 'Skip New York or Paris — Try Seoul'. https://imnews.imbc.com/replay/2026/nwdesk/article/6819601_37004.html
· Herald Business (2026.3.30), Park Jung-gyu, 'Suwon Mayor Lee Jae-jun: Filming-Location Database Project'. https://biz.heraldcorp.com/article/10705908
· Film Nevada, K-Wave Forum Presentation Deck (Film Nevada / GOED, 2026).
· GOED, Film Nevada Annual Report (FY2025). https://goed.nv.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Film-Annual-Report-2025.pdf
· Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada film tax credit coverage. https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/how-hollywood-productions-cash-in-on-nevada-tax-credits-3517970/
· Netflix Tudum, 'Obliterated' / 'The Lincoln Lawyer' filming locations. https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/obliterated-release-date-photos / https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/the-lincoln-lawyer-filming-locations
· Variety (2025.12), 'Brian Koppelman, David Levien, Martin Scorsese Team for Las Vegas Casino Drama at Netflix'. https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/brian-koppelman-david-levien-martin-scorsese-vegas-netflix-1236598583/
· What's on Netflix, 'Vegas Netflix Series Eyes May 2026 Filming Start'. https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/vegas-netflix-series-produced-by-martin-scorsese-eyes-may-2026-filming-start/