Connecticut cashes in on Hallmark Movie status to drive kitschy Christmas tourism boom

That’s because Connecticut — the location of at least 22 holiday movies by Hallmark, Lifetime and others — promotes tours of the quaint, Christmas-card cities and towns that feature in this booming movie market; Places where a busy corporate lawyer can return home for the holidays and cross paths with a plaid-shirt-wearing former high school flame who now runs a Christmas tree farm. (Spoiler alert: They live happily ever after.)

“It’s exciting — just to know that something was in a movie and to be able to see it visually,” said Abby Rumfelt of Morganton, North Carolina, after getting off a tour bus in Wethersfield, Connecticut, on a holiday movie tour stop.

Rumfelt was among 53 people, most of them women, on the weeklong “Hallmark Movie Christmas Tour,” organized by Mayfield Tours of Spartanburg, South Carolina. On the bus, fans watched identical films as they rode the bus from one stop to the next.

To plan the tour, co-owner Debbie Mayfield used the “Connecticut Christmas Movie Trail” map, which New England’s Winter State launched last year to capitalize on the growing craze for Christmas movies.

Mayfield, who owns the company with her husband, Ken, said this was their first Christmas tour to holiday movie locations in Connecticut and other Northeastern states. It included hotel accommodations, some meals, airfare, and even a stop to watch the Rockettes in New York City. Sold out within two weeks.

With snow in the air and Christmas songs blaring from the loudspeaker, the group stopped for lunch at Heirloom Market in Comstock Ferry, where portions of the Hallmark movies “Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane” and “Rediscovering Christmas” were filmed.

Once home to America’s oldest seed company, the store is located in a historic district known for its stately 18th- and 19th-century buildings. It’s a perfect setting for a holiday movie. Even the local country store sold T-shirts bearing the Hallmark crown logo and the phrase “I’m living in a Christmas movie. Wethersfield, CT 06109.”

“People know about us now,” said Julia Koulouris, who owns the market with her husband, Spyros, and gave partial credit to the film’s run. “And you see these things on Instagram and things that people tag and post.”

Christmas movies are big business – and a big deal to audiences

The concept of holiday movies dates back to the 1940s, when Hollywood produced such classics as “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Miracle on 34th Street” and “Christmas in Connecticut,” which were actually filmed at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California.

In 2006, five years after launching the Hallmark Channel on television, Hallmark struck “gold” with the rom-com “A Christmas Card,” says Joanna Wilson, author of This TV Season: An Encyclopedia of Christmas-Themed Episodes, Specials and Made-for-TV Movies.

“Hallmark saw those high ratings and then started creating that format and that formula using the tropes, and now it’s become their dominant formula that they create for their TV Christmas romances,” she said.

The holiday movie industry, which is expected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually, has expanded beyond Hallmark and Lifetime. Today, a mix of cable and broadcast networks, streaming platforms and direct-to-video producers release roughly 100 new films a year, Wilson said. The genre has also diversified, featuring characters from a wide range of racial and ethnic backgrounds as well as LGBTQ+ storylines.

But the formula remains the same. And fans still have an appetite for a G-rated romance.

“They want to see people come together. They want to see that romance. It’s part of the hope of this season,” she said. “Who doesn’t love love? And it always has a happy, predictable ending.”

Hazel Duncan, 83, of Forest City, North Carolina, said she and her husband, Owen, 65, like to watch movies together year-round because they are nice and family-friendly. They also take her back to their early years as a young couple, when life was easier.

“We hold hands sometimes,” she said. “It’s kind of nice. We have two lounge chairs in a very small bedroom and we have a TV in there. We close the doors, and our time together is done in the evening.”

Falling in love again…with a country

The Christmas Movie Trail is part of a multi-pronged rebranding effort launched in 2023 that promotes the state not only as a tourist destination, but also as a place to work and live, said Anthony M. Anthony, Connecticut’s chief marketing officer.

“So what better way to highlight our communities as a place to call home than as movie sets?” He said.

However, there is still debate in the state Capitol over whether to eliminate or limit film industry tax breaks — which could threaten the number of such films that will be produced locally.

Cristina Nieves and her husband of 30 years, Raul, already live in Connecticut and are approaching this path “little by little.”

She said it was an opportunity to explore new places in the state, like the Bushnell Park Carousel in Hartford, where a scene from the movie “Ghost of Christmas Always” was filmed.

It also inspired Nieves to convince her husband — who’s not exactly a movie fan — to join her in the tree lighting and Christmas show in their hometown of Windsor Locks.

“I said, ‘Listen, let me milk this special thing as long as I can, okay?’ She said.