Tarragona shoots up in rank
Tarragona has recently created a commission with the aim of making the work of the local Film Office easier in order to boost the shooting of international audio visual projects in the city
The carefully preserved Roman heritage sites in the city centre, the narrow, winding streets of the Part Alta, the beaches and emblematic sites, such as the Balcó del Mediterrani, are some of the urban corners that have been the setting of many film shoots or photography sessions in Tarragona. The city has now to set itself the objective of raising its profile as a venue for all kinds of audio visual projects, after fours years of growth, thanks to the work done by the Tarragona Film Office.
As the third Catalan city with the most film shoots every year, the city council has been working on formulas to make the procedures even easier for teams of film and photography professionals with an interest in shooting in the area. More specifically, the council has recently approved various measures and has created a special commission with the aim of giving support to the local Tarragona Film Office, which was created in 2010 as the main organism to attract and encourage film and photography production companies to shoot in the area.
Multiplied by six
In the past five years, the local Tarragona Film Office has practically managed to multiply by six the number of productions that have chosen the city as the main setting for their projects. If in 2010 there were only 19 audio visual productions, last year the number had risen to 101 projects, among them films, photography sessions, adverts and even various television programmes. This year, the municipal organisation has kept up the good work done so far, with 52 productions registered in only the first half of 2015.
All of these figures have established Tarragona as the third city in Catalonia with the most shoots, only surpassed by Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelonès), where last year 108 productions took place, and Barcelona, which obviously outstrips any other venue in the ranking, with a total of 2,494 productions.
In fact, Tarragona has occupied this position since 2012, when it made the step up from the fifth position that it had previously occupied in the Catalan ranking.
A positive impact on tourism
The fact that a particular city has become the setting for an important film project also has clear benefits for the local tourism sector. The settings of productions that, once finished and released, are advertised all over the world also means free publicity for the city, which then ends up having a positive impact on tourism. In fact, an emerging source of revenue for the local tourism industry has been the many visits to the settings of famous film or TV series shoots. According to a recent British study, some 36% of foreign visitors to the city have confirmed that the reason for their visit was because Tarragona had been chosen as the setting for an audio visual production. Only last year, Tarragona was the host to the shooting of five films, two short documentaries, 14 music videos, eight adverts and 19 photography sessions.