In 1954, Naaz became the first bollywood movie to be shot abroad, and that marked the start of a love affair between Bollywood and dreamy foreign locations all across the globe. In fact, Raj Kapoor Sahab – who is still a quite well-recognised figure in Russia –also played a big part in this when he took us to London, Paris, Rome, Venice, Vatican and Switzerland for his 1964 blockbuster ‘Sangam,’ and also ‘Around the world’.Over the years, this synergy not only led Bollywood to become a world-renowned film industry, and also the biggest film producer in the world, but it also proved beneficiary for the countries in which these movies were shot as it gave a massive boost to their tourism industry.
Today, Bollywood movies have been shot in over 52 countries, across 6 continents. Though, in the beginning,foreign locations for a bollywood film would only mean locations like London, Paris or Switzerland; but by the start of 2000’s, countries like USA, Austria, Australia and Hungary came into play with movies like DilChahta Hai, Albela, Hum Dil De ChukeSanam and KalHoNaaHo, making them famous amongst Indian audience.
Bollywood has always influenced holiday destinations of Indian audience, most recent example of which has been Prague. Prague offered a 20% rebate on the production cost to Indian filmmakers, because of which, Imtiaz Ali decided to film both,Rockstar and Jab Harry Met Sejal, in Prague. Many regional films, who also classify as bollywood films, took advantage of same benefits. And, data shows that in 2018, 85,680 Indians decided to spend their vacations in Prague, a number which is expected to cross 1 Lakh by the start of year 2020.
In our first season, we covered cities of central Europe like Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Munich and Bratislava, where we explored some surreal Bollywood locations of movies like Tiger Zinda Hai, Rockstar, Raabta, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, and many more. Our journey became far more content with the help and support offered to us by these countries.In upcoming seasons, we aim to travel more and limit ourselves not only to Europe, but we would also like to explore countries likeMalaysia, Russia or Dubai. And not only that, along with this we would also like to showcase some major Indian bollylands too, such as: Goa, Gulmar, Kerala, Shimla, Manali, etc, and many more, for our show ‘Bollylands.com’.
