When Stephen Gray noticed a dozen Game of Thrones fans, wearing helmets with torches, making their way in the darkness of a winter’s night along the road known as the Dark Hedges, the Northern Irish entrepreneur knew he had to buy the hotel and golf resort at its end.
Gray was driving along the Dark Hedges, so-called because of the tangle of branches formed by the avenue of beech trees near Ballymoney, County Antrim, in late 2014 when he had the lightbulb moment.
After standing in for the Kingsroad on the hit HBO show the public road, originally planted with 150 beech trees as the entrance to the Gracehill House country estate in the 18th century, has become a global tourist magnet.
“That was the moment when I knew this hotel and the ground around had the potential to be part of this globalised product,” Gray said. “If people were prepared to come on to this road at 11.30pm on a cold, dark winter night just to say they were on the Kingsroad, then they would come any time, throughout the year, any season. It was a no-brainer.”
Gray and his Belfast-based business partner Jonathan Gwynn bought the Gracehill House estate in early 2015 and have invested £5m revamping the house itself, the nearby hotel – named The Hedges – and golf course and surrounding grounds, set in 270 acres of Ulster countryside.
He has also bought the Dark Hedges trademark to cash in on Game of Thrones tourism. It is stamped on everything in the Gracehill House complex from Dark Hedges coffee to cider, vodka and gin.
The investment has increased the workforce, from 15 when Gray bought the hotel to 46 today. He is one of a number of Northern Ireland investors and business people hoping to exploit some of the most famous sites where Game of Thrones has been shot since its production located in the region seven years ago.
As Game of Thrones tourists from Spain, the US, France and the Irish Republic grouped around the beech trees for photographs on a rainswept summer morning, Gray said he had further plans to exploit the popularity of the show.
“We are in negotiations with a local helicopter firm to build a helipad out the back in order to fly ... tourists anywhere in Northern Ireland where the series was filmed,” he said.
However, as Gray dodged the lines of cars, coaches and minibuses barrelling down the Dark Hedges, he admitted the tourism rush has brought new headaches.
“As you can see the traffic is a problem and we need to make the Dark Hedges a vehicle-free route in order to preserve it for the future,” he said. “That means creating a new road that will divert vehicles away to our car park where we will have plenty of room. It’s absolutely vital we get that new road and take the traffic away from the Dark Hedges.”
Northern Ireland Screen, which helps fund the filming of Game of Thrones at Titanic Studios in Belfast’s docklands and at various locations around the region, has estimated that the fantasy drama pumped £150m into the local economy up to 2016.
But a Northern Ireland economist who has studied the economic impact of Game of Thrones on Northern Ireland and various cultural projects across the world has warned that the series’ legacy “has to be managed properly” to maintain the benefits for the local economy.
Dr Graham Brownlow, an economics lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast, said Northern Ireland should look to Merseyside and the Beatles as a model for continuing to exploit Game of Thrones.
He said: “The series’ legacy here has to be managed to be continually milked. The model for us has to be Liverpool. I have seen studies which suggest that the Beatles attractions on Merseyside bring in at least about £39m to the city every year. And this is about a band that broke up in 1970.
“The key thing is to make sure attractions connected to Game of Thrones in Northern Ireland don’t take tourists away from other places here; to ensure that there is no ‘transfer’ of tourist dollars from other locations.”
Brownlow added that the production expertise developed by those working on Game of Thrones since 2010 will act as a “magnet for other big TV and film series” seeking to locate in Northern Ireland.
There are already encouraging signs. The final series of Game of Thrones goes into production at Titanic Studios later this year, and nearby the new £20m Belfast Harbour Studios is preparing for its first production, the Syfy channel’s Superman prequel Krypton.
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