“DRACULA” AS A CULTURAL CONSTRUCT IN THE TOURIST OFFER OF ROMANIA
Keywords:
tourism, Dracula tours, Dracula theme park, Balkanism, Romania, Vlad TepesAbstract
This paper will examine the “Dracula tourism” which became more massive in early 1970s when Western tourists traveled to Romania in pursuit of literary, historical and surreal roots of the “Dracula Myth”. Tourist industry responded to this popular myth by creating programmed trips called “Dracula tours”, while Rumanian Ministry of Tourism made special efforts to enhance its tourist offer and profit through exploitation of Western notions of Dracula and Transylvania by constructing an amusement themepark. Questions of authenticity of tourist sights, commoditization of culture and cultural heritage, as well as questions concerning relationship between tourism and national identity and state’s role in forming and representing the tourist offer, are being raised through phenomena of Dracula tours and Dracula theme park.
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