The “Emily Effect”: How an American fictional character became France’s Economic Stimulus
Is Netflix's show Emily in Paris a guilty pleasure or a geopolitical asset? I try 'set-jetting' to find out.
Okay, before we begin, I have a confession to make.
I am currently an ‘Emily in Paris’ stan.
I know, I know. It’s cringe. It’s chaotic. It’s a flashy, and even perhaps hubristic, vision of the American experience. But I have watched every episode, and I am not just doing it for the “cultural commentary.” There is no doubt, I have a genuine love for the French language and history. I speak French well, have traveled all over this country for years, and respect the culture. But if I am being honest? I am mostly here for fashion and a really, really good pain au chocolat.
In fact, I am writing this right now from a café table outside the Ritz Paris.
As I sit here eating a croissant, brushing pastry flakes off my jacket, and watching the city wake up, a realization hits me harder than a season finale cliffhanger. I am literally living the cliché. I am here in Paris with my parents, doing precisely what the Netflix algorithm predicted I would.
It made me pause mid-bite. Am I just a fan, or am I a statistic? Did I come here because I love Paris, or did I come here because a fictional marketing executive character from Chicago sold me a fantasy so brilliant and compelling that even the President of France is fighting to keep it?
So, I decided to put down the croissant (temporarily) and pick up the data. I wanted to understand the real economics behind the fantasy and explore how a “guilty pleasure” TV show became a geopolitical asset reshaping the tourism, culture, and GDP of one of the world’s oldest cities.
Welcome to the “Emily Effect.”
Macron Vs. Rome
The drama around the “drama” is so intense that it has spilled over from the show’s writers’ room to diplomatic back-and-forth. Apparently, I am not the only one fighting to keep Emily in Paris. It turns out, the President of France is my biggest ally. In October 2024, President Emmanuel Macron gave an interview to Variety, not to discuss NATO or the European Union (EU), but to lend his support to a fictional marketing executive who decided to move to Rome to film Season 5. When asked for his reaction, he literally said he would “fight hard” to keep the show in Paris. In the same interview, when asked why he cares, he admitted, “It is super positive in terms of attractiveness for the country. For my own business, it’s a very good initiative.”
To President Macron’s comments, the Mayor of Rome fired back and tweeted,
“Dear @EmmanuelMacron, don’t worry: Emily is doing great in Rome. And you can’t control your heart: let’s let her choose.”
This diplomatic back-and-forth almost felt more like a plot from the show itself than real life.
Why is a world leader beefing with the Mayor of Rome over a Netflix show?
Here is my take: Macron isn’t just being a fan, he is being an economist. He understands a concept that older generations often miss. For Gen Z, filming locations are sacrosanct. We call it “Set-Jetting,” and it relies on a specific kind of authenticity. True fans don’t just want to watch a show, they want to physically inhabit the space. They want to stand on the exact cobblestones where the breakup happened. Recently, on our family trip to Atlanta with my family, we drove 50 mins from our hotel for some ‘set-jetting’ for Netflix’s popular series Stranger Things, so I know!
This is why the location “battle” matters. Even if a studio tries to fake it, hardcore fans seek out the actual set locations. When a production like Emily in Paris sets up shop, it doesn’t just bring tourists to a city; it also creates an entire ecosystem of local employment, opportunities for French crews, and revenue for neighborhood businesses. Macron knows that when the cameras move to Rome, the ‘set-jetters’ and their wallets follow.
The money involved in this industry is massive. Variety also reported that “French media company Banijay took over Endemol Shine, and Mediawan became a global player with a raft of high-profile acquisitions, including Brad Pitt’s Plan B. French luxury giants like LVMH and Kering have also invested in the film world,”. To the President, Emily is not just a character. She is the walking, talking stimulus package in high heels.
Set-jetting: The Economy of Tourism
President Macron is not wrong to be worried. He knows that we are living in the golden age of ‘set-jetting’ where, for Millennials and Gen Z’s like me, travel is less about the destination and more about the vibes we saw on Netflix.
The data backs the President’s thinking and approach. According to Expedia’s 2024 Travel Trends Report, more than half of travelers now say that TV shows and movies influence their travel plans, ranking higher than Instagram or TikTok. This includes ALL travelers in all age groups. For my generation, a streaming queue is basically a travel brochure. We don’t just want to visit Paris, we want to inhabit the set.
And the “Emily Effect” is the undisputed heavyweight champion of this trend.
The same Expedia’s 2024 Travel Trends Report collected global data from Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo to reveal the top set-jetting destinations to watch in 2024. Any guesses? Yes, it’s Paris, as seen in Emily in Paris, Season 4.
A January 2024 study conducted by IFOP for France’s National Centre for Cinema (CNC) showed a statistic that likely keeps the Mayor of Rome up at night. According to IFOP, among tourists driven by pop culture, 38% said Emily in Paris as their specific motivation to visit Paris. This makes the show the single biggest driver of screen tourism in France. Another way to look at this statistic is that nearly 4 in 10 visitors to Paris were not lured by the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower alone; they were converted by an “Emily” from Chicago.
The “Gabriel” Economy
The economic impact is real, and we don’t need to be economists to understand it. One just needs to try to get lunch at 18 Rue des Fossés Saint-Jacques, and believe me, I tried at the last minute with no luck.
In the show, this is the location of Les Deux Compères, the charming bistro run by Gabriel, the “hot chef” and Emily’s primary love interest in the show. In real life, it is a small Italian restaurant called Terra Nera. Before the show, it was a quiet neighborhood joint. Today, it is an Instagram pilgrimage site.
In the summer of 2024, while I was in Paris, I tried to get a table at Terra Nera, but the line was wrapped around the block. I literally saw a girl in a red beret arguing with the bouncer. It was chaos. The owners have jumped on the bandwagon; they even launched a signature dish, the “Tagliata di manzo Emily,” to capitalize on the obsession.
But here is my take on the darker side of the boom: This specific kind of tourism turns neighborhoods into backdrops. Travelers start seeing the city through the lens of a show rather than truly what the city has to offer. The influx at the nearby Place de l’Estrapade (where Emily lives in the show) became so intense that residents started graffitiing “Emily Not Welcome” on their shutters to turn away the selfie-takers.
This is the paradox of the Emily Effect. It brings the tremendous economic power of a major tourist hub to a tiny residential square, flooding local businesses with cash while driving locals up the wall until they start resisting. Does Emily Cooper speak terrible French? Painfully so. Is she chaotic? Absolutely. But is she terrifyingly good at moving the market? 100%.
Retailing the Fantasy
But the ‘Emily Effect’ doesn’t stop in Paris neighborhoods; it has made it to stores and checkout aisles, too. While ‘set-jetting’ drives people to Paris, the show also excels at promoting products. This is direct-to-consumer marketing that bypasses traditional advertising entirely. When Emily pitches a product on the show, real people buy it in droves. It proves that the most effective influencer in the world right now is not the person on TikTok, but the scriptwriter of Netflix.
The best evidence of this is the “McBaguette.” In Season 3, the writers didn’t just feature McDonald’s in the background, but rather they also made it a part of the central plot. In one episode, Emily pitches a luxury campaign for the fast-food giant, trying to make the “McBaguette” chic. As she did on the show, in the real world, McDonald’s France launched the exact same menu simultaneously. Well, guess what the result was? Sales of the McBaguette surged by 25% during the campaign, as reported by Define Creative in its 2024 study, “Fictional Marketing with Real Life Results: How Emily in Paris Redefines Product Placement in TV.” Honestly, the McBaguette scene was genius, even if the sandwich itself is kind of mid (just too much dry bread, not enough sauce for my taste). But that didn’t stop me from wanting one. Emily sold it to her client on TV, and Netflix sold it to us in the drive thru. The reality is that we are not just watching the show, we are consuming it, literally.
So, as I finish my croissant and watch the city’s visitors come to life for their own slice of the fantasy, I realize I am no longer just a fan, I am part of the data set. Emily Cooper might be a chaotic marketing executive with a bad French accent, but she is the most effective economist France has seen in years.
As for me? I am already checking flight prices to Rome.
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