HBO’s “The White Lotus” is doing a very good job in boosting tourist interest in the Italian island of Sicily.
The show was filmed at the San Domenico Palace Hotel in the hilltop town of Taormina, on the eastern coast of the Sicily. HBO reportedly bought out the hotel for two months to film the series.
According to mobile travel app Hopper, search for flights to Sicily are up 50% following the finale of the show’s second season.
The hotel is also reportedly sold out for spring 2023, despite rooms averaging an all-time high of 3000 euros per night.
“Of course we did expect it to some degree, though it wasn’t our main consideration when we decided to work with HBO,” the hotel’s general manager Lorenzo Maraviglia told The Daily Beast. “The interest has been primarily from the U.S. market, and though the U.S. has always been strong for us, I would think that the series may make it even more so.”
Other hotels in Taormina are also seeing a similar boost in demand.
The Emmy-winning murder-mystery dramedy stars Theo James, Ethan Sharpe, Haley Lu Richardson, Jennifer Coolidge, Adam DiMarco, Michael Imperioli, F. Murray Abraham, Meghann Fahy, Aubrey Plaza and more.
