White Walkers and dragons invade Belfast as part of Game of Thrones tourism push for Northern Ireland
by Tom Anstey | 10 Jun 2015
The stunt is part of a campaign to draw more tourists to Northern Ireland / Tourism Ireland
As part of Northern Ireland’s strategy to use Game of Thrones to boost tourism numbers in the country where the hit HBO show is mainly filmed, Tourism Ireland has created a frozen fountain and a life-size fire-breathing dragon at Belfast Zoo.
The moving animatronic dragon, designed to specs set out by HBO, has been built by prop makers for the show. The frozen fountain, portrayed as the aftermath of a visit by the White Walkers, was created using a snow machine.
The move is the latest in a series of stunts which have included Targaryen-farmed dragon eggs on sale at St George’s Market in Belfast as well as animatronic, three-eyed ravens at its City Hall. Giant’s footprints have also appeared on Portstewart Strand.
Tourism Ireland teamed up with HBO and Game of Thrones, in April for a 14-week campaign to promote Northern Ireland around the world in 2015, drawing fans of the series to the country to see the signature sites.
Among the sites fans of the series can visit, Northern Ireland includes The Iron Islands (Ballintoy Harbour), The Stormlands (Cushendun Caves), The King’s Road (Dark Hedges), Winterfell (Castle Ward) and Robb Stark’s Camp (Audley’s Field). Northern Ireland’s tourist board offers a prominent rundown on the filming locations and where to find them on its website and last year ran an 11-week online campaign in Britain, the US, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, which generated one million clicks and is estimated to have reached about 100 million fans worldwide. Discover Northern Ireland is teaming up with HBO for its 2015 campaign, which aims to bring more than two million tourists to ‘The Real Westeros’ by 2016 from a total of 1.8 million in 2013. It is estimated that in the past year, Game of Thrones has generated £87m (US$128m, €199.6m) at the locations where the scenes were filmed. -
“We are delighted to continue our partnership with HBO in 2015, to highlight Northern Ireland and its beautiful landscape – through the exciting events of Game of Thrones – on the global stage,” said Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland. “We aim to build on the success of last year’s campaign, reaching out to the show’s global fanbase and demonstrate the spectacular scenery of Northern Ireland.
"Game of Thrones fans worldwide will see these ads, spiking their curiosity about the landscapes and locations featured in the series and inspiring them to come and explore them for themselves.”
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Game of Thrones at the forefront of Northern Ireland tourism push
As part of Northern Ireland’s strategy to use Game of Thrones to boost tourism numbers in the country where the hit HBO show is mainly filmed, Tourism Ireland has created a frozen fountain and a life-size fire-breathing dragon at Belfast Zoo. The moving animatronic dragon, designed to specs set out by HBO, has been built by prop makers for the show. The frozen fountain, portrayed as the aftermath of a
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