‘The White Lotus’ inspires series fan vacation destination; daily rates reach R$ 22 thousand

The New York Times

For some fans of “The White Lotus”, watching the series is no longer enough. They want the full experience.

Last month, Will Potter, an executive at Sotheby’s auction house who lives in New York, booked a stay at the San Domenico Palace, the Four Seasons resort hotel in Taormina, Sicily, where the second season of the series was filmed.

“There are very few shows that I watch that make me comment out loud that it’s really good,” said Potter, 38.

During the first season of the HBO series, which was set in Hawaii, Potter was especially taken with Tanya McQuoid, the bumbling heiress played by Jennifer Coolidge, he said. Watching the second season with his wife on Sunday nights, after they had put their two children to bed, he fell in love with the idyllic Sicilian setting of the new show’s plot. Weeks before the final, murderous episode of the season aired, Potter made a hotel reservation for his family’s summer vacation.

“We talked it over and came to the conclusion that this was a wonderful opportunity to do a complete adventure,” said Potter. “The hotel looked beautiful.”

He added that the family plans to take local excursions inspired by the walks of the series’ characters in the immediate vicinity of the hotel.

“We watched the episode that takes place in the Noto region,” he said, “and we talked that it would be nice to change things up a bit and go out and see that place. And so we put together the exact itinerary.”

The San Domenico Palace, a former Dominican monastery perched on a headland overlooking the Ionian Sea, was converted into a hotel in 1896. Guests have included Oscar Wilde, DH Lawrence, Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren.

After the second season of “The White Lotus” began airing in October, the hotel saw “a spike in visits to our website from the US, UK and Australian markets,” said Ilaria Alber-Glanstaetten, manager general of the resort.

Some of the suites costing US$4,200 a night (more than R$22,000 at current exchange rates) are still available for 2023, she added. “Bookings have gone up, but the biggest impact has been in terms of awareness,” said Alber-Glanstaetten.

As with most characters in “The White Lotus,” some of the hotel’s guests have had less than peaceful stays there. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, arguably the best-known celebrity couple of the mid-20th century, became part of San Domenico lore after a dramatic argument on the hotel’s terrace in 1963.

“Liz [Taylor] apparently broke a mandolin over Dick’s head [Burton]”, said Alber-Glanstaetten. “The reason for the quarrel seems to have been jealousy.”

The manager attributes the sometimes stormy weather to Mount Etna, the active volcano visible from the windows of many of the suites. “It’s hard to describe, but when you’re there, you really feel the presence of the volcano,” she said.

Ida Mova, 37, a design consultant for Waterworks, a maker of bathroom and kitchen equipment, lives in San Francisco and visited the San Domenico Palace in August. After watching “The White Lotus”, she is ready for a second visit. “I can’t wait to go back,” said Mova.

The travel website Expedia defines the trend in television and movie tourism as “set-jetting”. Nearly two-thirds of travelers who participated in a recent survey by the online travel giant reported having already booked at least one trip inspired by a movie or TV show, the company said.

The first season of “The White Lotus” was filmed at the Four Seasons Resort Maui in Wailea, Hawaii. Like the San Domenico Palace in recent months, that hotel saw a spike in bookings last year, but it’s hard to say whether that was related to the HBO series or the end of the coronavirus lockdowns shortly after the show’s first season ended.

“Our strategic goal was to try to reopen after filming was complete,” said Robert Delaney, Four Seasons Maui resort manager. He added that many guests now ask about the Pineapple Suite, an accommodation that only exists in the universe of “The White Lotus”, and that most ardent fans “talk about the small complexities of the series’ characters”.

Mike White, creator of “The White Lotus,” doesn’t always portray hotel staff in the most flattering light. In season one, resort manager Armond seriously abuses drugs and has sex with another employee in his office. In the second season, Valentina, manager of the resort in Taormina, resorts to an unoccupied suite to have sex with a prostitute.

Delaney said that, in some circumstances, the way in which hotel staff are portrayed is not very true to life. “The picture they paint of the activities that the characters or the managers participate in is not a true picture of the day-to-day role that someone like me, for example, plays here,” he said.