‘Wednesday’ Has Goth Girls Flocking to Romania
Romania is having one hell of a month.
After the arrest of “alpha male” podcaster and alleged human trafficker Andrew Tate by Romanian authorities, young women have started to flock to the Balkan country – willingly, this time. According to data released by the Expedia Group, interest in Romanian tourism has skyrocketed by 55% following the release of Netflix’s Addams Family reboot series Wednesday, which was filmed in and around the country’s capital of Bucharest.
Expedia has identified “TV tourism” as one of the top trends in travel for 2023 – the uptick of fans booking vacations to visit the sets of their favorite film or TV show is expected to be one of the largest drivers of tourism worldwide. As Wednesday continues its run as one of the most-watched shows in recent memory, Romanians can expect to see swarms of dark-haired women with pale skin and a propensity for the macabre make their way to the capital city. Hopefully they leave their severed hands at home.
According to Expedia, some 66% of travelers worldwide have searched for a vacation to their favorite film or TV destination, and 39% of all tourists have actually booked a trip to famous shooting sites such as castles of Dubrovnik, Croatia for a Game of Thrones tour, or the mountains and valleys of New Zealand for a Lord of the Rings holiday. Those numbers only go up for American travelers, of whom a reported 61% have gone on such trips.
In just the first few weeks following the release of Wednesday in November 2022, the Jenna Ortega-led coming-of-age horror-comedy passed 1 billion hours viewed and became the second most popular English-language series in Netflix history. Over that timespan, Expedia noticed the 55% increase in searches for hotels in Bucharest compared to the previous month. As the popularity of both Wednesday and “TV tourism” continues to grow, Romanian hotels can expect to see a continued uptick in bookings as goth girls fly from around the world to witness the real-life sets Nevermore Academy in the nearby towns of Buftea and Bușteni.
Tours have already been organized for the studios and sets of the smash hit series and, as more and more Wednesday fans figure out that Transylvania is a real place and that flights to Bucharest are more affordable than they thought, Romania may be at the beginning of a major tourism boom that could radically change the cultural landscape of the areas associated with the Tim Burton series.
Cry yourselves some black tears of joy, Romanians – the goths are going on vacation.
