Rebecca Lower from Iowa is hoping to visit Hobbiton Tongariro National Park and Weta Workshop as well as the filming locations around Queenstown.
Photo: RNZ / Katie Todd
Thousands of fans are still making the pilgrimage to Middle Earth nearly a quarter century after The Lord of the Rings first hit the silver screen.
Tourism New Zealand said nearly one-in-five visitors from the United States last year booked their trip because of the trilogy – with tour operators reporting a renewed surge in demand for Lord of the Rings experiences.
Rebecca Lower, from Iowa, said the movies were the key reason New Zealand was on her radar and the catalyst for being in Queenstown this month.
“This is my senior year of high school and we’re taking a trip one place anywhere in the world – and I decided I wanted to come to New Zealand to visit all of the filming locations with my mum, who’s also a big fan,” she said.
Their itinerary included a trip to Hobbiton, a hike in Tongariro National Park, a visit to Wētā Workshop and a tour of film locations around Central Otago, Lower said.
“It’s a lot of fun being able to pretend for a while that I’m in some fantasy world,” she said.
Southern Trails, which runs Trails of Middle Earth tours, offers a range of trips to filming locations with opportunities to see and handle replica props and dress up in fellowship-style cloaks.
Owner Shane Pinder said bookings had almost doubled since restarting the company in 2023 and it now offered helicopter tours.
“People are really craving for more Middle Earth,” he said.
“We’ve got a third vehicle; we’ve got another $15,000 worth of props; we’ve got now six guides – whereas we were just two for the first year … and we’re continuing to grow.”
Most visitors had grown up with the movies, he said.
“This is their dream to get over here and see all the locations where the films took place.”
A few kilometres away, Silky Otter cinemas offers 13-hour Lord of the Rings movie marathons every week, comprising all three of the extended editions of the films with introductions by Peter Jackson.
Peter Janssen from Belgium said he was inspired to visit New Zealand because of Lord of the Rings.
Photo: RNZ / Katie Todd
Cinema manager Clem Walker said the sessions – running from 10am to 11pm every Tuesday – typically drew 10 to 20 viewers with most staying right until the end.
“It carries us through quiet seasons and during the winter season it’s going to be even bigger again,” he said.
Many viewers were locals on working holidays or fans closing the circle after visiting filming sites – a final stop on their Middle Earth mission, he said.
“It’s almost 4D, being able to walk out and immediately look out the windows at Middle Earth itself,” he said.
“To say you’ve seen it in a cinema is a novelty, but to say you’ve seen it surrounded by most of the major filming locations – it’s just that extra step.
“I think the whole tourism industry of New Zealand is on a growth curve that sort of parallels Lord of the Rings fandom as well. It just runs quite closely. We’re not planning on stopping at all.”
North American travel company GoWay had also recorded a rise in people seeking out Lord of the Rings adventures.
Shane Pinder from Southern Trails which runs Trails of Middle Earth Lord of the Rings Tours.
Photo: RNZ / Katie Todd
After the company updated its itineraries last year, interest in New Zealand trips featuring movie stop-offs almost doubled, South Pacific vice president Anthony Saba said.
“Our search data tells us we’re getting a lot more people hitting these packages … once we rejigged them to be a little bit more Middle Earth, Lord of the Rings-focused in some of the labelling,” he said.
People typically were not going soley for movie-related experiences, but it was a key reason for their interest, Saba said.
“I think what happened was it made people research New Zealand more and they learned more about it, Māori culture, the scenery, Milford Sound,” he said.
It will be 25 years since the premier of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and 12 years since the final Hobbit movie – The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in December.
Tourism New Zealand said last year’s International Visitor Survey showed 14 percent of arrivals to the country were motivated by The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films.
Among visitors from the USA, that figure rose to 18 percent, it said.
“Once here, 26 percent of visitors went to or participated in a film location, tour or experience, this was 37 percent for visitors from the US,” a spokesperson said.
Saba said long-time fans now had the time and money to travel.
“A lot of people who were really interested in the Lord of the Rings movies 25 years ago, they may have been in their 20s. And that drove a lot of interest to New Zealand. But a lot of those people, North Americans, don’t travel until they get into their 50s and do this kind of a trip. So I think what we’re seeing now is that generation…now fulfilling the dream of going to New Zealand,” he said.
Shane Pinder believed a sense of nostalgia was contributing.
“It’s this cycle that you see in pop culture, whether it’s music and fashion, movies – people hark back to their younger days. Twenty-five years just seems to be that kind of number where people always look back. I see a lot of people listening to early 2000s music and dressing the way that I dressed when I was in high school. And I guess Lord of the Rings was a huge part of the early 2000s pop culture – these were the biggest films of the early 2000s, 17 Academy Awards,” he said.
“That’s not to say that there wasn’t fandom in between, but it definitely seems like there’s a resurgence of it.”
Peter Janssen, a fan from Belgium, said it was all about the power of the ring.
“It’s so unique the way they were filmed, the location here, it’s just amazing. I think it just has a lot of influence on people’s lives,” he said.
“For me New Zealand was always high on the list – but mainly because of Lord of the Rings,” he said.
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