Why Fans Travel Thousands of Miles for Fictional Places

In 2019, more than 17 million international tourists visited locations in Japan associated with anime, manga, films, and other forms of popular culture, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. What was once considered a niche fan practice now sits inside a broader structural shift in how tourism demand is created.

Why would someone spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to visit a railway crossing in Kamakura, a staircase in Tokyo, or a rural town in Gifu? Traditional tourism models struggle to fully explain this behavior because they emphasize natural beauty, cultural heritage, or major attractions.

Anime pilgrimage suggests another force is equally powerful: narrative attachment. In the emerging experience economy, stories increasingly create destinations.

Key Findings

• Fictional narratives increasingly influence travel behavior across film, television, games, and anime.
• Anime pilgrimage has become a meaningful tourism segment in Japan with visible local economic effects.
• Fans are not simply visiting places; they are extending and completing narrative experiences in real space.
• Story-driven visitors often engage more deeply and spend more broadly than conventional sightseeing tourists.
• Intellectual property is increasingly functioning as a tourism asset, not just a media asset.

The Emergence of Narrative Tourism

For centuries, tourism was organized around physical attractions such as landscapes, monuments, museums, and cultural heritage. The value of a destination was closely tied to what existed there in material form.

Global media changed that logic. Increasingly, people travel not because a place is inherently spectacular, but because a story made it meaningful. New Zealand benefited fromThe Lord of the Rings. Croatia benefited from Game of Thrones. The United Kingdom continues to benefit from Harry Potter.

Japan provides one of the most developed versions of this model through anime pilgrimage. In narrative tourism, the story comes first, the emotional connection forms through media, and the physical journey happens afterward.

Anime Pilgrimage Is No Longer a Niche Activity

Anime pilgrimage, or seichi junrei, has evolved from a fan subculture into a recognized tourism phenomenon. Numerous Japanese locations have experienced demand growth after appearing in anime, films, and games.

• Hida City and Tokyo locations featured in Your Name
• Kamakura's railway crossing featured in Slam Dunk
• Numazu, associated with Love Live! Sunshine!!
• Hakone, strongly connected with Neon Genesis Evangelion
• Locations linked to Demon Slayer, Suzume, and other recent franchises

What makes these cases notable is that many of the places were not major tourism destinations beforehand. Their economic value was not created by new infrastructure or luxury development. It emerged because storytelling attached emotional significance to the location.

Why Fictional Places Feel Real

A physical location has limited tourism value when perceived only as a neutral space. But when a story attaches meaning to that space, the perceived value changes dramatically.

The staircase from Your Name demonstrates this clearly. As a staircase, it is ordinary. As a site connected to emotional scenes, character relationships, and shared fan memory, it becomes globally meaningful. The place itself does not change. The narrative value does.

Narrative Completion as a Travel Motivation

One useful explanation is what can be called narrative completion theory. Traditional tourism assumes travelers seek new experiences. Anime pilgrimage suggests many travelers seek to continue an experience they already started through media.

When a compelling story ends, the emotional relationship between audience and narrative often continues. Visiting a real-world location associated with that story allows fans to extend the relationship into physical space.

From this perspective, anime pilgrimage is not simply sightseeing. It is a way of linking fictional and physical worlds through personal experience.

The Reverse Theme Park Effect

Theme parks generally follow a straightforward sequence: build a place, create an experience, attract visitors. Anime pilgrimage works in reverse.

The locations already exist. The infrastructure already exists. The story becomes the attraction. Economically, this is highly efficient because tourism value can emerge without large-scale capital investment in new destination construction.

The Economic Value of Fictional Places

For local governments and tourism organizations, successful franchises can operate as long-term destination assets. When visitors travel to anime-related locations, they spend across multiple categories.

• Transportation
• Accommodation
• Restaurants
• Retail
• Local attractions
• Merchandise
• Events

These expenditures are often distributed across local businesses rather than captured by a single attraction operator. That makes narrative tourism especially appealing for regional development, where franchise visibility can be converted into broad-based economic activity.

In this sense, IP starts to function as tourism infrastructure.

Why Anime Pilgrims Behave Differently from Traditional Tourists

Anime pilgrimage matters not only because it brings visitors, but because it often brings highly engaged visitors. Their motivation is emotional rather than purely recreational.

• Visit multiple related locations
• Purchase themed merchandise
• Participate in events
• Share content on social media
• Return to the destination
• Engage with local businesses

This deeper engagement increases visitor lifetime value. The goal for destination managers is not simply to attract traffic, but to attract visitors with strong emotional motivation. Narrative tourism often does exactly that.

Intellectual Property as a Tourism Asset

Historically, IP generated value through content sales, licensing, and merchandise. Tourism generation is now becoming an additional layer. Successful franchises increasingly shape where people travel, how they spend leisure time, and which locations gain global visibility.

That means IP should be understood not only as a media asset, but also as a location-based economic asset. The strongest franchises create value across multiple dimensions.

• Content
• Merchandise
• Community
• Experiences
• Tourism

In anime pilgrimage, these layers reinforce one another. Stories create attention, communities amplify interest, destinations create embodied experiences, and those experiences generate economic activity that strengthens the broader franchise ecosystem.

Strategic Implications for the Future of Tourism

The rise of anime pilgrimage points to a broader shift in tourism strategy. Traditional tourism focuses on physical assets such as landmarks and attractions. Narrative tourism focuses on emotional assets.

As younger generations consume more global media, stories may become as important as geography in shaping travel decisions. The most valuable destinations of the future may not simply be those with the strongest physical attractions, but those connected to the most compelling narratives.

For tourism planners, the challenge is no longer only place development. It is understanding how stories generate demand for places.

Conclusion

Anime pilgrimage reveals a broader transformation in how tourism value is created. People increasingly travel not only to experience places, but also to experience stories.

Emotional attachment formed through media can be strong enough to influence real-world travel decisions, create local economic value, and transform ordinary locations into international destinations.

Geography still matters, but geography alone is no longer sufficient. The destinations that attract the most passionate visitors are often those where physical space and narrative meaning intersect. Anime pilgrimage is one of the clearest examples of this shift, and likely not the last.