FILM TOURISM THROUGH THE LENS OF ACTOR-NETWORK THEORY

ABSTRACT:

Film tourism explores the influence of audiovisual products on tourists and tourist destinations. This article describes film tourism based on the theoretical-methodological precepts of Actor-Network Theory (ANT). In terms of method, ANT describes a phenomenon based on different research techniques, including the discourse of the actors involved. Based on this guidance, semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals from public and private institutions in the tourism and audiovisual sectors, in order to describe film tourism. The result of the interviews was triangulated with the findings from the literature review, generating the report presented here. The study revealed that the cinematographic vocation of Rio de Janeiro is used as a discourse to attract audiovisual productions to the city, and that there is a lack of deeper associations between the tourism and audiovisual sectors of the city. The centrality and hypertrophy of one of the actors, the existence of invisible actors, and some that have been dismantled along the way, were detected during the research. The local tourism sector is not linked to the audiovisual sector, a relationship that could represent an opportunity for business expansion that has been little explored.

KEYWORDS:
film tourism; screen tourism; cinema; Actor-Network Theory (ANT)