Association of Leading Visitor Attractions

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09 Jan 2020

£24m Game of Thrones Studio Tour planned for Northern Ireland

The upcoming Game of Thrones studio tour in Bambridge, Northern Ireland, will boost the country's tourism spend to £400m (US$523m, €470.7m) by the year 2030 a report has revealed.

Expected to open later this year, the studio tour will be housed inside Linen Mill Studios – a key production site for the show – and is the result of a partnership between HBO and Linen Mill owner, John Hogg and Company.

Being developed at a cost of £23.7m (US$31m, €27.8m), the tour will feature original sets, costumes and props from the series, as well as a host of interactive experiences, while the great hall at Winterfell will serve as the centrepiece of the tour. Also planned are a restaurant and a 'backlot' café designed to replicate the studio catering that the Game of Thrones cast and crew would have experienced, as well as a ticketing area and retail and office spaces.

According to a planning application, approved by Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council in April 2019, a 350-vehicle-capacity park and ride facility is planned, while the existing studio buildings will be extended to become a 100,000 sq ft (9,290 sq m) Game of Thrones-themed interactive experience.

Once open, it will provide almost 200 jobs and will operate 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It's expected to welcome 600,000 visitors a year, with a quarter of visitors coming from Northern Ireland, a third from across the border and the remainder made up of international visitors.

If it meets this target the tour the new attraction will become the region's third most visited behind the Giant's Causeway and Titanic Belfast, which attract around 1.04 million and 815,000 visitors per year respectively.