Does the new season of Max’s The White Lotus have you dreaming of a luxury vacation to Thailand? That’s what some in Thailand’s tourism industry are hoping, including the nation’s Tourism Authority, which offered direct support to the show’s production. The Four Seasons hotels in Maui and Taormina saw increased business after being featured in seasons one and two of the show respectively, and the same growth is likely for the Four Seasons Koh Samui currently featured in season three. But is the popular US show actually making more people want to travel to Thailand? We used our social listening and analytics solution to take a closer look at The White Lotus’s impact on digital conversation and what it means about TV tourism.
What is TV tourism?
“Screen tourism”, “movie-induced tourism”, “TV tourism”, and similar terms refer to the phenomenon of a place becoming a popular tourist destination after being featured in a TV show or movie. From The Sound of Music inspiring fans to visit Salzburg, Austria, to The Lord of the Rings boosting New Zealand’s tourism industry, popular entertainment driving travel isn’t a new trend. But today, marketers can use social listening solutions to track how entertainment shapes public discussion in real time, improving their ability to engage new audiences and tap into emerging trends.
Is The White Lotus boosting interest in traveling to Thailand?
Broadcast, news, and social media mentions of The White Lotus compared to English-language mentions of keywords and phrases about visiting Thailand.
According to the digital conversation, not so much. From January 1 to March 24, 2025, the day after the sixth of eight episodes of The White Lotus aired on Max, there were about 5.26 million mentions of the show across broadcast, news, and social media sources including X, Reddit, and Bluesky. However, in the same period of time, there were about 553,000 mentions of wanting to visit Thailand and related keywords and phrases with no significant spikes coinciding with airings of the show.
Broadcast, news, and social media mentions of English-language keywords and phrases about visiting Thailand.
The one exception is on February 17 when the Thailand tourism conversation spiked the day after the show’s premiere. However, it was only the fifth-biggest spike overall with the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s activation with celebrities BamBam and Mawin driving the biggest surge in conversation in January. Meanwhile, a March 8 spike that occurred the same day episode four aired was coincidental, sparked by a news story about tourists in Thailand unrelated to the Max show.
The White Lotus’s limited impact (so far) on the digital conversation may come as a surprise for those who have been hearing news about TV tourism for years now, particularly following the runaway success of the series Yellowstone and its undeniable effect on Montana tourism as well as the film Crazy Rich Asians’ boost to organic search interest in Singapore. One key difference is that, unlike Montana, Salzburg, New Zealand, and Singapore, Thailand already ranks in the top 10 most popular tourist destinations in the world. Instead, media outlets may simply be more eager to anticipate the next screen tourism success. For example, when we analyze the overlapping Thai tourism and The White Lotus conversations, we can see that media coverage is a significant force behind the buzz, compared to social media chatter.
Mentions of English-language keywords and phrases about visiting Thailand and mentions of The White Lotus split by source type.
More than half of the nearly 14,700 mentions of tourism to Thailand and the show The White Lotus came from news and broadcast sources alone. Those mentions spiked significantly in the lead up to the show’s premiere as top outlets like the New York Times, BBC, Australia’s ABC, and many more around the world reported on the expected Thai tourism boom. Meanwhile, the social media side of the conversation was significantly driven by buzz about just one person. More than a third of the nearly 6,500 social media mentions of Thai tourism and the show also mentioned “Lisa” aka Lalisa Manobal of the K-pop group Blackpink.
Now, if you haven’t heard of Lisa before, count yourself in the minority. She is currently one of the most famous people on Earth. Lisa having her acting debut on The White Lotus has been a huge boon for the series, with about 47% of all mentions of the show also mentioning her. So whatever boost Thailand’s tourism industry may see from The White Lotus, much credit is due to its most famous cast member. That’s exactly why the Thai government has already formally thanked Lisa for increasing American tourist interest in Koh Samui, Thailand, where the show’s third season is set.
Takeaways for marketers
Screen tourism is certainly making headlines, but its effectiveness in driving tourism isn’t quite the sure thing many may assume. Instead, individual entertainers’ impact on mass tourism may be proving to be a much bigger force. Tourism boards have famously linked up with celebrities before, from the Korean Tourism Organization’s 2022 campaign featuring Suga and Jimin of the K-pop group BTS to Barbados’ long-standing partnership with Rihanna. Meanwhile, the Singapore Tourism Board has found success (and controversy) with its more recent focus on event tourism. In February, the agency reported that Singapore’s tourism sector saw record levels of spend in 2024, thanks in part to having secured Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Coldplay to make the country the exclusive South East Asia stops of their high-profile, global tours.
Overall, the case of The White Lotus, Lisa, and Thailand highlights the importance of having a multi-pronged approach for marketers looking to drive tourism interest. At the same time, it raises questions about how tourism marketers can better capitalize on social media conversations driven by popular TV shows as they air, not just in anticipation of them.
