By Victor L. Simpson
The Associated Press

MATERA, Italy - There's the hotel where Mel Gibson slept, the restaurant that dished up his favorite fettuccine, the cafe where he stopped for his morning cappuccino.

As the director's film The Passion of the Christ opened across Italy this week, no place had as much of a stake in the movie's success as this corner of Italy's poor Basilicata region.

For two months last year, Gibson and company set up shop in Matera, filming the graphic sequences of Christ's last hours, the bloody scenes of his torture and crucifixion.

Now, they hope to turn it into a tourist bonanza.

Along with its famous sassi, the caves dug into the rock that gives Matera the look of ancient Jerusalem, the town now has the film's backdrop to offer tourists on package tours - along with the scores of locals who worked as extras.

"We are off the beaten path, I don't have too many illusions," said Rosalia Giura Longo, who runs the Italia hotel and whose photo with Gibson hangs in the lobby alongside a thank-you note he wrote her. "But this year it looks like things are moving."

Passion tour packages by travel agencies reportedly have sparked interest among visitors from the United States, while Easter Week tourists from Europe - Germans, French, Norwegians and Italians - are already strolling Matera's narrow streets and up the hill where Jim Caviezel, the American actor who played Jesus, struggled under the cross.

"Matera isn't new to the Passion business. Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini shot his The Gospel According to St. Matthew in Matera in 1964, clearly struck by the same scenery that led Gibson to the site.