True Stories

How literary tourism brings books to life

- STORY BY TODD PLUMMER

AROUND THE WORLD, readers are increasingly seeking out destinations that blur the line between fiction and reality. Future Market Insights projected that global literary tourism is expected to grow 50 percent by 2034, up to $3.3 billion. And Hollywood is fanning the flames. Frankenstein has come back to life with Guillermo del Toro's long awaited adaptation of Mary Shelley's Gothic classic filmed partly in Scotland. Emerald Fennell (Saltburn, Promising Young Woman) has a saucy new retelling of Wuthering Heights on deck for Valentine's Day, capturing all the ghostly beauty of Northern England's moors.

"We've seen an extraordinary rise in guests who come to live inside their favorite novels," says Andrew Jordan, executive vice president of YTL Hotels, whose portfolio includes England's Gainsborough Bath Spa. "Our literary visitors were seasoned travelers with a fondness for Austen and history—but now we're seeing younger guests, too, inspired by modern retellings and period dramas."

Bath, of course, is where Jane Austen once strolled the Assembly Rooms and Shelley wrote much of