Tourists heading to Oscar locales

EDINBURGH, Scotland, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Tourist interest in locations featured in several Oscar-nominated films has spiked in recent weeks, the proprietors of a Scottish flight search engine said.

Skyscanner.net says its search data show a 100 percent rise in flight searches to India following the release of "Slumdog Millionaire," and following the release of Baz Luhrmann's epic "Australia," flight searches to the land Down Under have also risen substantially.

"Skyscanner's data show that countries can expect to see a significant boost to tourism when they are featured in a film. Movies are effectively one giant advert for a country," Rob Innes, head of marketing for Skyscanner, said in a statement. "They capture our imagination in a far more powerful way than a guidebook or magazine article can, and inspire people to visit. Just look at what happened to tourism in New Zealand after the 'Lord of the Rings' films, it's a prime example. Tourist numbers grew around 5 percent in each of the years those films were released."

"Slumdog Millionaire," which earned eight Oscars Sunday, is giving India's tourist trade a particularly timely boost, Innes said, noting that although the Indian subcontinent has long been a popular pilgrimage for Western backpackers, the Mumbai attacks last year projected a less positive image of the country as a tourist destination. "Slumdog" has helped put it back on track as a great place to visit, however, he said.

Other locations expected to benefit from the "film factor" are Bruges in Belgium -- the location for "In Bruges" -- and Barcelona where Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is set, Innes said.