Florida beach town writes Amazon TV series to lure tourists
Remember that longing you felt after an episode of “Sex and the City” to shop at the characters’ favorite New York haunts and drink cosmopolitans at the same bars? Or that sense of wanderlust for the seaside cliffs of Ireland after watching
“Game of Thrones?”
Hollywood’s flattering spotlight has put small towns on the map, like Wilmington, North Carolina, from “Dawson’s Creek” and the woods of Senoia, Georgia, from “The Walking Dead.” And that’s exactly what travel marketers in St. Petersburg and Clearwater, Florida, were hoping to capitalize on when they commissioned an original, scripted TV series, seeking to draw quarantineweary tourists to the area’s sugar sand beaches.
“Life’s Rewards” aired on Amazon Prime last month. The eight-episode show is based on a charming yet cavalier wealth manager who loses his money and uses travel rewards points to stay at the posh, pink Don CeSar hotel while rebuilding his life.
Each episode is only eight to 14 minutes long, and was filmed using a local production company, director and actors. The series cost roughly a million dollars to create, split between the city and the state’s tourism arm.
Some of the “ad” spots woven throughout the dialogue are obvious, like the random episode about the Tampa Bay Watch Discovery Center. But the characters quickly pivot back to plot-forwarding dialogue. It’s a quick-hit ad versus the sustained 15- to 30-second hard sell of conventional commercials.
At other times, the settings feel natural, like the gay nightclub Blur or a tour of the colorful WhimzeyLand “bowling ball house” in an episode featuring a scavenger hunt. Even the countless gratuitous beach shots mostly feel believable.
“I’m watching something and I’m drawn into the show because of the story line, but also the places I’m seeing in front of me,” said Steve Hayes, president of Visit St. Pete Clearwater, who noted that he and his wife frequently talked about visiting Wyoming while watching their favorite show, “Yellowstone.”
While sometimes awkward, the characters in “Life’s Rewards” refer to every destination in the scene by name.
There were no fake dive bars or coffee shops.
It’s too soon to gauge whether the series has impacted tourism, or even how widely it was viewed.
The hospitality industry was hit hard by the pandemic, and tourist towns are eager to seize on the new willingness to travel. That’s put more pressure on destinations to market outside the box.
“Every single destination in the world is now looking for that tourism boom. I think it’s more important than it ever has been,” said Alexandra Delf, executive vice president for London-based Grifco, a travel marketing firm.