23/02/2012 00:00
TW
0

Palma.—For over a decade now, Majorca has been one of Europe's most popular locations for the filming of TV advertisements and many of the ads have gone on to win awards across the world but more recently, British and German TV production companies have finally realised the diversity of the island and the high standard of professionalism Majorca's audio visual industry offers.

This summer, the third series of Sky One's hugely successful Mad Dogs, which is actually set on the island, is due to be filmed here again while numerous German series are poised to deploy to Majorca to begin filming this Spring.

But, and this is primarily thanks to the Majorcan Film Commission, which is only just over a year old, a sizable part of the 150 million dollar blockbuster Cloud Atlas, starring Tom Hanks, John Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Natalie Portman and Halle Berry (to name just a few), spent most of the summer shooting in various parts of the island under the guidance of the creators of the Matrix trilogy.

Hollywood Irish star Colm Meaney, who lives in Soller, also spent parts of last year starring as the lead in El perfecto desconocido (The Perfect Stranger) which was directed by the Majorca Toni Bestard and shot entirely in the island.

And, this year, Harvey Keitel is expected to film a large part of his latest Hollywood movie, which is likely to have the word Majorca in the title, on the island and none of this has gone unnoticed by the travelling British public.

Travelbite.co.uk reported yesterday that Low Cost Holidays are reporting a huge surge in online searches for travel destinations that have been featured in this year's Oscar nominated films and other productions on the big and small screens.

It seems that film-fanatic travellers have been inspired by the glamorous screen locations - enough to search for the destinations on the Low Cost Holiday website.

Searches for holidays to Hawaii, a destination which happens to be where George Clooney filmed The Descendants, are up by 70 per cent.
Best picture
Meanwhile, best picture nomination Midnight in Paris has pushed the already popular romantic destination up by 215 per cent and the success of The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo has created interest in Sweden with a 100 per cent year on year increase in searches for short breaks in Stockholm.

In honour of the 84th annual Academy Awards taking place in Los Angeles on Sunday, the travel website has come up with its own ‘Oscar Travel Awards' - to honour the best destinations in 2012.

The winners include Mexico as best long haul destination, because of it's unbeatable value for money, and the Mediterranean island of Majorca for best short haul destination - due to its sandy beaches, its fabulous scenery and diversity as a film location.

Unfortunately, some of these productions, such as the first series of Mad Dogs shot two years ago, were partly funded by the local authorities. The Council of Majorca intelligently invested 150'000 euros into Mad Dogs aware of the possible knock on affect the series, which has an all star cast, could have on the island's film and tourism industries. The local authorities can not afford to call “cut” on the island's booming film industry now.