‘Game of Thrones’ suddenly the king of Northern Ireland’s tourist kingdom

“Game of Thrones” has already turned out to be an international success, so why wouldn’t the home country of the show try to do just about everything in its power to secure even more success from it? This is why it isn’t too big of a surprise at all that Tourism Ireland is doing everything that it can at this point to ensure that the HBO series’ popularity, much in the way that New Zealand has with the “Lord of the Rings” franchise, manages to be a tremendous tourism boom for the show.

According to the BBC, Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster specifically had the following to say on the subject of how the show can be used to not only draw in new people to the region, but also some who have already visited parts of it before:

“In order to attract new and repeat visitors, Tourism Ireland will be seeking to capitalize on the huge popularity of Game of Thrones.”

Personally, we envision that Northern Ireland may have a little bit more trouble trying to make their own particular mission happen than those in New Zealand, mostly because we don’t quite know if there are as many iconic locales in comparison that are available. The King’s Landing exterior scenes are filmed in Croatia, for example, and many of the interior scenes are filmed using the help of soundstages. You have to get a tour behind the scenes in order to see some of them, and we imagine that this would not be a particularly easy thing to secure.

But with all of this being said, some of the scenery on the show should be reason enough to visit Northern Ireland. It’s a beautiful place, and we can imagine a few people running through there cosplaying in suits of armor.

If there is one “Game of Thrones” location that you would want to visit ideally, what would it be? Be sure to share some of your thoughts below! Also, click here to check out some scoop on what could be coming in season 4 of the show.

Photo: HBO