Fans of Golden Globe-winning film “La La Land,” set in modern-day Los Angeles, might be swept away by the romance of young lovers portrayed by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. But Don Skeoch, marketing chief for the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board, is more interested in cultivating a love affair between the movie’s L.A. locations and tourists.
The board is in the midst of a push to use the musical movie, featuring 60 area locations, to draw visitors, particularly from international markets. The move comes as L.A. officials reported last week that a record number of tourists, 47 million, visited the city last year, an increase of nearly 4 percent compared with 2015 that brings the city closer to its goal of 50 million visitors by 2020.
“La La Land” might bring them one step nearer to crossing the finish line.
“We are so fortunate that this is a two-hour advertisement or love letter for Los Angeles,” Skeoch said. “I love to tell people there is a third lead actor: the city of Los Angeles.”
FilmL.A. Inc.’s Paul Audley agrees.
“‘La La Land’ is a wonderful homage to the city of Los Angeles and its cinematic history,” said Audley, chief executive of the L.A. region’s nonprofit film office. “Fans from all over the world will be drawn to Los Angeles to relive moments in the actual locations where the movie was filmed.”
The tourism board recently posted a guide to touring prime “La La Land” locations on its website, DiscoverLosAngeles.com. The page features movie stills, a film trailer, and background information on key movie locations: Griffith Park, site of the movie’s dreamy billboard image of the stars dancing, and Griffith Observatory; downtown’s Grand Central Market and Angels Flight hillside rail car, closed since 2013 but portrayed as active in the movie; Watts Towers; Burbank’s Smokehouse restaurant; and Hermosa Beach’s Lighthouse Café and pier.
The marketing effort includes a partnership with British photographer Rich McCor, known as @paperboyo. McCor has photographed his signature paper cutouts – in this case of the lead characters dancing – for the board’s Instagram and other social media.
With the permission of “La La Land” producer Lions Gate to use the film as well as movie photos and promotional materials, the tourism board is also in the midst of leveraging the film in the city’s largest inbound international markets: Mexico, China, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. That push involves screening the movie for potential travel trade, airline, and hotel partners who might be interested in creating “La La Land”-themed travel options or promotional trips.
Board officials declined to say how much might be spent on their “La La Land” marketing efforts, including the website. They said those activities are being undertaken by the board, not the film company. The nonprofit marketing organization is contracted by the city of Los Angeles, which helps fund its more than $40 million budget with more than $17 million in hotel bed taxes.
Prescreened
This is not the first time the tourism board has promoted local shooting locations as a tourist attraction, but the hit movie provided an opportunity to step up the efforts, Skeoch said.
The agency’s most recent visitor-profile study suggests that the initiative will prove successful in international markets, he said.
Visitor interviews for the most recent study, from 2013, indicate that 5 percent of domestic visitors surveyed mentioned filming locations as a primary reason for coming to Los Angeles. The rate is much higher for international visitors: 17 percent of that group cited location visits as an area of interest. Those percentages together, when applied to the total number of visitors in 2013, equate to about 1.5 million people.
The board is still calculating figures from its latest visitor survey, taken last year.
Skeoch said the average spending for an overnight visitor during a trip of any length is $633, which multiplied by 1.5 million visitors comes to just shy of $1 billion annually.
Board president Ernest Wooden Jr. said film and TV location visits are extremely important to L.A. tourists.
As part of its ongoing effort to encourage visitation, the board recently chartered a double-decker bus from Starline Bus Tours to tour media and influencers around Los Angeles, highlighting “La La Land” locations.
Starline spokeswoman Susan Wilson said the company’s tour offerings include a locations tour in partnership with Turner Classic Movies, and it has approached Lions Gate about creating a “La La Land” tour as well.
It’s a risk, she admitted, because tours based on specific movies can have mixed results.
“Oftentimes movies feature locations which are not able to be experienced, such as Angels Flight that the film shows to be operational, but it’s not,” Wilson said. “In other situations, like the recent movie ‘Entourage,’ the allure of the locations is short-lived.”
