Paper short abstract:

Twilight tourism has served as a lifesaver in Forks. Yet it is not without its problems and challenges. This paper shows how Forks was created a new form of tourism to the town, how it affects the local culture and how the local actors are making the tourism as sustainable as possible.

Paper long abstract:

Stephanie Meyer's Twilight books and the subsequent movies are a phenomenon. The books have sold over 120 million copies worldwide and are translated into 38 different languages and the movies have earned 2.5 billion dollars at the global box office. With numbers like this, it is no surprise that the Twilight-phenomenon has also created tourism.

Stephanie Meyer chose the town of Forks in Washington as the setting for her novels almost by pure chance. When the first Twilight novel was published in 2005, the number of visitors in Forks was around 5500 and the total number of visitors had been declining every year since 1997. After the publication of Twilight, the number of tourists started to grow slowly but steadily and in 2010 the number of visitors reached as high as 72 885. Since then the numbers have declined a little bit, but the average number of tourists is still around 40 000 a year.

The Twilight phenomenon served as a lifesaver for many of the businesses in Forks, but as it is often the case with tourism based on fiction, it also created opposition and difficulties among the local residents. This paper shows how by happenstance a small town was able to create a new form of tourism to the town, how it affects the local culture and what the local actors are doing to make the tourism as sustainable as possible.