As set-jetting — choosing vacation spots based on favorite films and television — continues to launch travelers, Nantucket is primed to be one of the next beneficiaries of the burgeoning trend.

Although the Massachusetts island off the coast of Cape Cod is not exactly a tough sell in the summer months, Peacock’s upcoming release of “Five-Star Weekend,” a celebrity-starring show that is set on Nantucket and based on the page-turner by Elin Hilderbrand may encourage more travelers to map their way there. Having written 27 Nantucket-centered books and sold more than 20 million copies, the author’s fans are well-informed about her hometown’s rose-covered cottages, lobster rolls, Cisco Brewers, Steamship Authority ferries and other essentials. Headlined by Jennifer Garner, who plays a food influencer dealing with the unexpected death of her husband, the drama’s Nantucket backdrop may inevitably reel in more first-time visitors and day-trippers.

As for why some can’t get enough of Nantucket, Hilderbrand said, “It defines American summertime. Nantucket has 50 miles of undeveloped, pristine beaches that are open to the public except for one very short stretch. Then you have this absolutely iconic downtown with cobblestone streets, brick sidewalks, antique whaling captains’ homes that are so beautifully maintained with window boxes and arches covered with roses. Just walking in the noncommercial part of downtown is so aesthetically pleasing,” she said. “And there are [nearly] no chain stores, no neon signs and no stoplights on the island. It defines New England charm.”

Located 30 miles out to sea, it’s also hard to get to and expensive, and “sort of self-curates the kind of person who is going to come visit. You have to save for it, or have a lot of money to buy a house here,” the author said. The visitors bumping up against the locals has also created a lot of great material, she added.

But the Hollywood treatment coincides with the tourist-reliant community’s peak season. With the island’s population swelling to 80,000 in the summer, some year-rounders and second homeowners are already angsty about SUV-heavy traffic, an overrun historic Main Street, crowded restaurants and overflowing stores. Once the whaling capital of the world, the entire island is a designated National Historic Landmark with the first house dating back to 1695. But it’s local businesses like Murray’s Toggery Shop, Gypsy, Nantucket Looms and Mitchell’s Book Corner that fans of Hilderbrand check out after reading about them in her books.

Hopeful that “Five-Star Weekend” fans will visit in the shoulder seasons — as in May and October — Hilderbrand is “super sensitive to people, who are just not happy about it” and how the potential publicity may play out. She said, “It’s a double-edged sword, because there are people on Nantucket who are very wary about it being overrun. The thing I will say is that my readers tend to come in the shoulder seasons, so they’re here now. They’ll come in October. My hope is that will happen instead of there being a glut of the visitors during the high season.”

The fact there are only so many daily ferries and flights to Nantucket could help that theory, she said. “That is my dream. Whether or not that will happen, I think there will be a certain amount of shoulder season visitors.”

While some residents in Sconset, a town on the east end of Nantucket that is known to prioritize privacy, aired their concerns about Peacock filming on Nantucket at a selectmen’s meeting, Hilderbrand, the show’s executive producer, said, “Businesspeople in town are all screaming enthusiastically. The way that the cast and crew patronized local businesses was nothing short of miraculous. They brought so much money in and people were really grateful. So, it’s never one thing or the other. There’s always a little of both.”

From her viewpoint, “Five Star Weekend” is the first time in movies or television that Nantucket looks right. “It is so beautiful. Anybody, who has ever come here, will feel a sense of ownership. People will feel emotional about how gorgeous Nantucket is portrayed,” Hilderbrand said.

Viewers will get glimpses of the Wicked Island Bakery, where some vacationers and locals start lining up at 5:30 a.m. to score French buttered morning buns. (Hilderbrand’s daughter worked there as a teenager.) The famously preppy Murray’s Toggery Shop also gets a shout-out in the eight-part series, as does another institution on the island — the Chicken Box, a beloved dive bar, and Cru, an oyster bar. Garner’s castmates include Chloë Sevigny, Regina Hall, Gemma Chan and D’Arcy Carden.

Just as the film adaptation of author Peter Benchley’s “Jaws” sent droves of visitors to Martha’s Vineyard, Hilderbrand’s books have prompted many to head for Nantucket, according to Vanessa Deserio, whose family has run the Erica Wilson store on Main Street for 60 years. And many first-timers, who come to explore, fall in love with the islands and wind up returning year after year, she said.

In fact, 53 percent of global travelers are increasingly interested in screen-inspired getaways and set-jetting is projected to become an $8 billion industry in the U.S. alone, according to Expedia’s “Unpack ’26 Trend Report.” And splurging for a Nantucket hoodie, a one-day round-trip ferry ticket or an overnight stay on Nantucket is more attainable than, say, buying a home, where the average house was valued at $3.1 million as of April 30, according to Zillow. Meanwhile, the median home in Southampton, N.Y., was valued at $2.2 million.

Twenty-six years after Hilderbrand started writing books, she has become the island’s unofficial ambassador or frontwoman. So much so that she has a signature brand of apparel of gifts that is sold online. “I’m wearing the ‘Take Me to Nantucket’ hat now,” she offered during a phone interview. And hundreds of readers have flocked to the island for her ticketed weekend-long extravaganzas that bring the pages of her books to life. Erica Wilson, for example, previously hosted needlepoint lessons and in-store shopping events, which boosted winter sales.

Asked if she ever imagined that her writing would evolve into such a cottage industry, Hilderbrand said, “Never in a million years. I just can’t get my head around it,” she said.

But the self-described “extremely disciplined” Little, Brown-published writer isn’t exactly loafing around on workdays. Up by 5 a.m. to do some work until 7:30 a.m., she then exercises for three hours, before blocking off seven hours to get three hours of writing done amidst periodic requests from her grown-up children. “I read during my workday. In the summertime, I’ll swim and work out by the pool. I consider all of that part of the process.” (Her summer reading list includes Patmeena Sabit’s “Good People,” Lena Dunham’s “Famesick: A Memoir” and Sean Greer’s “Villa Coco.”)

Banking on a huge summer for the island, shoe designer Vanessa Noel, who had a Nantucket store for 20-plus years, said, “I hope that the series will be an asset for Nantucket. I love that she writes all these books on Nantucket and about Nantucket. I’m excited for her and hope that they’ve done it right by her.”

Noting how many domestic travelers are skipping Europe due to high airfares this summer, Noel said weather forecasts are often irrelevant for Nantucket and Hamptons travelers. “It’s going to rain over Memorial Day, but I have a lot of friends, who are already heading up to Nantucket,” she said.

This summer Noel is turning over her in-town retail space to two Naples, Fla.-based businesses — the menswear designer Michael Hayes and Love by Celine. But the anticipated “Five-Star Weekend”-fueled interest is a point of caution with others. The Nantucket Historical Association’s executive director declined to comment for this story.

Local retailers, which account for 112 of the 770 members of the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce, are primarily independent operations except for the grandfathered-in Ralph Lauren, Faherty, Lilly Pulitzer and Roller Rabbit. In 2006, residents voted overwhelmingly for a Formula Business Exclusion Overlay District to keep chain stores from chipping away at the historic island experience and eating into its tourist economy. Roller Rabbit was temporarily shuttered last summer and has since reopened as “The General Store by RR” — a multibrand boutique with a good dose of local brands to comply with town bylaws. 

This spring’s “incredibly strong” Daffodil Weekend, which area stores gauge as a barometer for summer sales, has made Diserio optimistic about the months ahead. In advance of Peacock’s July 16 release, Erica Wilson will probably create a window display for the debut of “Five Star Weekend.” Diserio and Hilderbrand, who met years ago through the Nantucket Boys & Girls Club’s board of directors, teamed up to create “Elin-inspired” needlepoint canvases including a $58 “I Read Elin” bookmark and a $118 “Hilderbabe” pillow.

Avis Skinner, whose Vis a Vis store closed last year after 40 years in business, said Hilderbrand’s weekends brought in “people, who shopped, during weekends, when there probably would not have been people shopping.” And having more stores open in the off-season especially during the winter makes people happier and “creates a great atmosphere for Nantucket so that it isn’t dead,” she said.

Highlighting how Hilderbrand’s descriptions of the island are so specific that Nantucket is a character in her books, “Five-Star Weekend”’s creator, showrunner and executive producer Bekah Brunstetter said, “To read about it in her books or to see it in the show, it feels like a fairy tale. It’s this place that is kind of frozen in time. And it’s hard to find places like that where there’s no Starbucks, McDonald’s, Target and the things that we see all over our suburban communities.”

And there’s no cell service on many of those beaches. Whether viewers pack up to see Nantucket for themselves or not, Brunstetter said, “I hope that this could be one of those shows that transports you and makes you feel like you are there.”

More than anything, Hilderbrand wishes that people understood that “real people live here.” Emphasizing how the year-round community is “so incredibly tight and supportive” of each other, she said, “We take care of our own. It’s also extremely diverse. The school emails go out in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Lithuanian, Bulgarian and Nepalese. We also have our share of people, who are financially insecure. Six hundred families send their kids to the Boys & Girls Club after school, because their parents are working. There is a vibrant diverse working community.”