Luxury hospitality on screen: the case of The White Lotus series as an inducer of tourist and audiovisual Consumption
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29147/revhosp.v23.1275Keywords:
screen tourism, luxury hospitality, The White LotusAbstract
This article examines how audiovisual productions potentiate the promotion of tourist destinations associated with luxury experiences, using The White Lotus series (HBO, created by Mike White, 2021–2025) as a case study. Based on a qualitative approach, this research is characterized as a case study grounded in bibliographic and documentary research. For the investigation, content analysis is employed to verify how the series' narrative stimulates the desire for high-end resorts, reinforces the luxury tourism imaginary, and impacts the international visibility of the filmed destinations. The study considers the three seasons produced (2021–2025), with an analytical focus on the third season, set in Thailand, articulating the representations of luxury and hospitality in the series with data on the increase in hotel bookings, the creation of thematic tourism products, and co-branding strategies between HBO, Four Seasons, and institutional tourism actors. It is argued that The White Lotus simultaneously operates as a satirical critique of luxury tourism and as a showcase for experiential consumption, exemplifying the role of the audiovisual sector as a vector for the symbolic valorization of territories and the induction of tourist flows in the high-end hospitality segment.
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