Not long ago, travelers planned their vacations with guidebooks, brochures, and advice from friends. Today, they plan them by clicking “Next Episode.” Welcome to the era of Set-Jetting—the cultural phenomenon where people book their holidays not based on geography or budget, but on whichever TV show or streaming series currently lives rent-free in their imagination. And if one show has defined this trend more powerfully than any other, it is The White Lotus. Its sun-bleached beaches, marble-lined lobbies, infinity pools, and intoxicating locations have turned entire tourism economies upside down. Sicily saw a surge in bookings. Hawaii recorded a boom. And now Thailand—the setting of the upcoming season—is bracing for an influx of travelers whose itineraries have been inspired not by guidebooks, but by HBO.
Streaming platforms have accidentally become the world’s most effective travel agents. With their sweeping drone shots, cinematic landscapes, and seductive production designs, TV shows now function as emotional advertisements for real-world destinations. The difference? They aren’t selling travelers with slogans—they’re selling them with stories. People don’t just want to visit a place; they want to step inside the narrative they fell in love with on screen. They want to walk where the characters walked, eat where they ate, and soak in the same atmosphere that once existed only through a screen.
The “White Lotus Effect” is the perfect example of how storytelling is shaping global tourism. Sicily’s San Domenico Palace became the most talked-about hotel of 2022. After the show aired, the Four Seasons property saw a surge of searches and sold-out months. Guests weren’t booking a room—they were booking a fantasy. They wanted to relive the scenes of chaos, luxury, mystery, and scandal that played out in the series. Thailand is already seeing early tremors of the same phenomenon. Production rumors alone have triggered travel bloggers to create “White Lotus Thailand itineraries,” travel agencies to offer “Lotus-inspired retreats,” and hotels to prepare for guests who plan to treat their vacation like an extended cinematic role-play.
This trend is not limited to The White Lotus. Emily in Paris made Parisian cafés, patisseries, and flower-dotted walkways suddenly “Instagram-essential.” Fans flocked to the exact courtyard where Emily lived, ordered the same pastries she photographed, and mimicked her outfits. Game of Thrones transformed Croatia, Northern Ireland, and Spain into pilgrimage sites for die-hard viewers, resulting in tourism booms so large that some cities struggled with overcrowding. Stranger Things has fans visiting small American towns. Narcos reshaped tourism in Colombia. Breaking Bad did the same for Albuquerque. Even quiet dramas like Normal People created tourism spikes in Ireland.
What makes the trend uniquely modern is that streaming shows reach global audiences instantly. A season finale can send an entire country to Google Maps. A single iconic scene can reroute millions of travel dreams. Unlike movies, TV shows create long-term emotional attachment; viewers return week after week, forming parasocial relationships with places as much as characters. The destination becomes a character. A balcony becomes a mood. A beach becomes a metaphor. Travelers aren’t simply choosing destinations—they’re choosing arcs.
Streaming platforms have also mastered visual seduction. Their production budgets rival those of major films, meaning the destinations they portray are not simply shown; they are glorified. Wide-angle shots of oceans, perfectly staged sunsets, slow-motion drone footage capturing cliffs and temples and ancient stone walls—all of it amounts to free tourism advertising that no tourism board could hope to replicate. But unlike traditional tourism marketing, these images come with narrative emotion. Viewers don’t see landscapes—they see stories happening on landscapes. They imagine themselves in those stories.
The psychology behind set-jetting reveals why it is so irresistible. Watching TV stimulates the reward centers of the brain, and moods experienced during a show—romance, curiosity, escapism, nostalgia—become mentally tied to the setting. When viewers later feel the urge to travel, their brains return to those emotional anchors. The destination becomes a craving—a return to the emotional high triggered by the series. This is why people feel an almost magnetic pull toward places they’ve only seen on screen. It isn’t about realism—it’s about emotional memory.
But the “White Lotus Effect” is reshaping more than personal bucket lists. It is changing how tourism boards operate. Countries now court production companies the same way they once courted airlines. Governments offer tax breaks to studios, hoping that a series filmed within their borders will trigger a tourism boom worth millions. In Thailand, government officials openly admitted that hosting The White Lotus was an intentional tourism strategy. They aren’t alone. Japan welcomed countless fans after Lost in Translation. New Zealand became synonymous with Middle-earth. Even small villages in Italy saw crowds after Call Me By Your Name.
Of course, the phenomenon comes with complications. While set-jetting boosts local economies, it can also cause overtourism, inflation, and cultural misunderstandings. Dubrovnik, overwhelmed by Game of Thrones tourism, had to implement restrictions to protect the city. Paris regularly battles “Emily tourists” who over-romanticize neighborhoods and disregard local etiquette. Even Hawaiian locals expressed mixed feelings about the attention brought by The White Lotus, especially in regions battling housing shortages and cultural preservation issues. In essence, the cinematic dream can collide with real-world realities, especially when travelers treat a location as a “set” rather than a living community.
Still, the momentum is only growing. Today’s young travelers trust media more than guidebooks. Influencers more than travel agents. Visual storytelling more than marketing copy. Set-jetting allows them to travel with emotional references already built-in—“the piazza from Episode 4,” “the beach from the finale,” “the villa where the characters stayed.” It turns vacation planning into world-building.
In a digital age where escapism is a survival mechanism, it makes sense that people want to step inside the stories that brought them joy, thrill, or comfort. Set-jetting is travel as emotional extension. Travel as imagination. Travel as fandom. And The White Lotus, with its intoxicating blend of luxury, dysfunction, satire, and paradise, is the perfect storm: aspirational, seductive, unsettling, and unforgettable.
The dream today is not simply to get away. It is to step into a world you’ve already lived in through a screen. Streaming shows didn’t just influence travel. They reshaped the entire psychology behind why people travel in the first place. In this sense, The White Lotus is not a show—it is a passport stamp. A ticket. A template. A fantasy people want to make real.
And with every new season, tourism industries around the world hold their breath, waiting to see which country HBO will turn into the next global obsession.