'I saw the trailers': filming locations prepare for House of the Dragon tourists

In the early hours of Monday, August 22, the night before will return: HBO's House of the Dragon, the long-awaited sequel to Game of Thrones, the most successful TV series of all time , will air in the UK from 2am on Sky.

The new series will be watched more closely in some parts of the world than others, particularly Cornwall , Derbyshire and parts of Spain and Portugal, for the simple reason that Game of Thrones transformed the tourism industry wherever it went.

In the decade Following the debut of Game of Thrones in 2011, the show's major filming locations saw massive growth in visitor numbers. Iceland went from around 500,000 visitors to more than 2.5 million, Dubrovnik (the fictional King's Landing) more than doubled in number, while Northern Ireland reportedly brought in over £250 million from additional tourism revenue. Hence a certain buzz in places as diverse as Holywell Bay in Cornwall and the remote hilltop villages of Monsanto in Portugal.

"I saw the trailers and recognized several places," says Visit Cornwall's managing director, Malcolm Bell, "including Mounts Bay, St Michael's Mount and Holywell Beach."

Cornwall is already a former beneficiary of the improvement film and television locations. When Angharad Rees and Robin Ellis rose to fame on the BBC series Poldark in 1975, it began a rush to places such as Kynance Cove and Holywell Bay, both of which would have been revisited by House of the Dragon.

The most recent edition of Poldark, plus Doc Martin, again increased the number of visitors. “It was important among the 50-plus age group,” says Bell. "But we hope that House of the Dragon will allow us to be known to younger audiences around the world."

The statistics confirm his hope. More than a quarter of all American millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) have watched Game of Thrones. With House of the Dragon expected to deploy similar ingredients (lots of female nudity and bloody violence), viewership numbers are expected to follow.

For Cornwall, however, it there are voice warnings. It's not a place that starts off with a low level of tourism: the county's industry is already worth £2billion. When the lockdown ended in July 2021, around 2 million visitors arrived in 12 weeks, straining local patience and resources and leading to The Sun's headline: "Tourists say Cornwall is too loud and too expensive ".

Host Sawday's, owner of glamping specialist Canopy and Stars, has already announced a limit to its expansion in the region. Mike Bevens, Managing Director, says: “Some holiday operators' constant insatiable desire for growth is unsustainable. The industry cannot continue to gorge on the bounty of local infrastructure, communities and the environment without considering the longer-term effects.

The message is backed by Mark Duddridge, of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership, whose 2021 report stated: “The simple act of adding more visitors to our existing pattern of peak-to-trough seasonality is not what we want in terms of jobs, stable incomes, our environment or our experience of living in Cornwall.

Bevens thinks there are other places in Cornwall that visitors could explore. "I would suggest Restormel Castle, Botelet or the Lizard and Roseland peninsulas."

The Peak District is also set to feature in the new series, with Matt Smith spotted during film I...