‘White Lotus’ fuels huge tourism spike for Sicily

Fans of “The White Lotus” are taking to the internet to figure out how they can vacation like wealthy but miserable romantic Tanya McQuoid-Hunt and her put-upon assistant, Portia.
Web searches for travel to the Italian island of Sicily, where Season 2 of the hit HBO show was filmed, are now up 50% after Monday’s record-breaking finale, according to economist Haley Berg from the mobile travel app Hopper.
“When we see very popular shows with incredible cinematography like ‘White Lotus’ air, we often see big surges in demand to destinations around the world,” Berg explained to ABC News on Tuesday.
But wanderlusters hoping to stay at the San Domenico Palace — the 111-room, 14th-century monastery-turned-luxury hotel where it was filmed — will have no such luck. The palace reopens in spring 2023 and is already sold out.
Rooms are averaging at around $3,000 per night for seaside-facing rooms — the highest in the resort’s history, Berg revealed.
The Season 2 finale of “The White Lotus” attached 4.1 million viewers across HBO on Monday. Stefano Delia/HBO
The church of San Domenico in Noto, Sicily, Italy. Getty Images/iStockphoto
The San Domenico Palace Hotel in Messina, Sicily. Universal Images Group via Getty
Roundtrip airfare from the US to Sicily currently averages around $1,225, per the app, while the average hotel room on the Taormina coast, where other scenes of the show were filmed, is going for $192 per night.
HBO has renewed the show for a third season but its location has not been revealed.
A similar phenomenon happened for the Four Seasons Maui when the first season of “The White Lotus” aired last year. The final season of “Game of Thrones” raised searches for travel to Croatia while “Yellowstone” is driving up tourism to U.S. National Parks, according to “Good Morning America.”
“The White Lotus” is among popular shows like “Game of Thrones” and “Yellowstone” that have inspired tourism.
America’s favorite MILF and “American Pie” star Jennifer Coolidge recently revealed that the season finale was influenced by her own real-life personality.
The actress also recently clarified a comment she made about the “best d–k” she got after playing Stifler’s mom in the 1999 classic film, saying she may have exaggerated the number of bed partners she acquired.