Tourist destinations masked in the symbolic constructs of «Money Heist» (Netflix, 2017-2021)

Abstract

The popular Spanish fiction series Money Heist has been seen in more than 190 countries and has won the International Emmy Award for Best Drama. In 41 episodes over five seasons, a group of thieves dressed in red overalls and concealing their faces behind Salvador Dalí masks break into the Royal Mint of Spain and the Bank of Spain with the intention of carrying out an ambitious heist at each location. There are almost no product placements of real-life tourist attractions in the narrative structure of the series. This article discusses whether certain symbolic constructs identified in Money Heist could act as tourism inducers in the same way as the placement of real-life locations, a practice explored extensively in recent research. This study finds a considerable increase in tourist numbers to the Royal Mint of Spain that coincided with a massive rise in searches on YouTube for identifying elements of the series and a significant correlation between those elements and Spanish tourist destinations on Instagram. It thus offers evidence of the presence of symbolic constructs that could serve as inducers of both domestic and international tourism to Madrid.