public spaces to foreground and display artistically (and culturally) significant crafts and artefacts to an audience of passers-by.13
5.1 Literary Tourism A further example of tourist and local interest/beliefs converging though art is discussed with reference to Romania. Again, the disjunction between visitors’ focus and that of the local population is clear. Light (2007) discusses the genesis of Dracula tourism, a phenomenon which, while based in a misconceived construction of Romania/Transylvania and an inaccurate/fictionalised account of a well-regarded local historical figure, has done much to place Romania (Transylvania) ‘on the map’ as a visitor destination. The genesis of Dracula tourism began when Romania was still a communist country, while little was known of Dracula there, Western interest in the fictional nobleman’s origins was expanding; prompting a New York based travel company to approach the head of the Romanian tourist office in the same city with the idea of creating an in-country tour (Light, 2007:755). The suggestion resulted in ‘the production of an 18-day package entitled Spotlight on Dracula: An Adventure in Transylvania’ (Light, 2007:755). Creation of the tour gave rise to a situation whereby the Romanian leadership had to decide whether to exploit the economic potential associated with the popularity of notions of Dracula, vampires and the supernatural even though such ideas were ‘fundamentally at odds with the country’s political identity as a socialist state’ (Light, 2007:755). At this time, Romania was attempting to build its profile as a potential travel destination on the basis of its socialist achievements the Dracula discourse was not only antithetical to this objective, it further embedded ‘long-established ways of seeing Romania that were an inseparable part of the Western Dracula myth. [Thus] [t]he country found itself represented in ways that were not welcome both over which it had little influence’ (Light, 2007:756). There was little to be gained in terms of ‘reciprocal cultural benefit or understanding’ however, the economic realities facing Romania in the mid-1970s and early 1980s meant that the opportunity to earn foreign currency that Dracula tourism presented could not easily be spurned (Light, 2007:756). Interestingly, in spite of the local unease regarding the domestic view of Dracula and associated tourism, the Romanian authorities gradually progressed towards a ‘combination of historic and fictional tours […] to those who expressed an interest in the Dracula myth’ (Cosma et al, 2007:42). Thus, for example, although Poienari Fortress is ‘identified’ as the model for Dracula’s Transylvanian castle, for reasons of infrastructure and accessibility the Romanian authorities favoured Bran Castle, which has come to be identified with the book and its protagonist (Cosma et al, 2007:42; Reijnders, 2011:232). 13
The author looks at case study examples in Hungary, Netherlands and USA.
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