Tourism with Teeth

Dracula: dark villain, brave hero, bloody vampire, just leader, unjust tyrant, fierce impaler, fearless ruler, unwanted stain, or idolized source of national pride and identity? Regardless of which is true, these, and many more, names and claims have served to make Vlad Tepes (a.k.a. Dracula – the character behind Bram Stoker's popular novel) a controversial and fascinating figure. Romania has realized the potential for profit from the cult fame of this character in this time of economic hardship, and is making every effort to cash in on Dracula's fame by making him an object of tourist fascination and using him to attract tourists to Romania from the over four thousand "Dracula" clubs from around the world. This single character has affected the development of tourism as an economic, social and political force in Romania. This 'Draculization' does not, however, sit well with most native Romanians, who have diverse opinions and feelings toward this leader from their past. Some background history of both Vlad Tepes (the historical figure) and Dracula (the fictional character) provides a context for examining how this history has translated to Romania's bid to use him in the tourist industry. Romania has been trying to construct a theme park focused solely on Vlad the Impaler. Vlad Tepes, who many Romanians view as a national hero and protector of Romanians, may still, though long dead, be helping his people.

Who was Vlad Tepes? Why did Bram Stoker use him as a basis for Count Dracula, (the principal character from his popular novel, Dracula)? The fictional character of Dracula is based off of the legendary historical prince of Wallachia, Vlad Tepes. The name Tepes means "Impaler" which was given to Vlad for his propensity to punish by impalement for even the pettiest of crimes. The name Dracula is also central to the story of Vlad Tepes. Dracul (which is a Romanian word with a dual meaning for 'dragon' and 'devil') was a name Vlad inherited from his father, also named Vlad, who earned the title "Dracul" for becoming a member of the Order of Dragons, an order that was "a very exclusive club with a select membership numbering only monarchs, or heirs to the throne" (Praoveanu). Vlad Tepes later signed official letters "Draculea," which is Romanian for "son of Dracul" and later was called Dracula by his adversaries who linked him to the devil for his cruelty (Praoveanu and Denis). Vlad Tepes was known as a fierce leader who believed in absolute honesty and fatal consequences for anything less. Romanians view him as a national hero, one who ensured order and justice, and valiantly led his country in opposition to the Turks and protected it from the Empire, albeit by severe methods (Boia, 2001, para. 226). Among foreigners, Tepes was known for his gruesome unimaginable cruelty, his unforgivingly severe punishments and for his image as a habitually bloodthirsty tyrant (Praoveanu). All offenders to Dracula's law were put to death by impalement, no matter how minor the offense. A popular legend goes that Vlad left a golden cup by a spring of water. People were so afraid of breaking one of his laws that no one dared to take the cup; even years after he died the cup remained – untouched.

These characteristics made Vlad Tepes an ideal character for Bram Stoker on which to base his fictitious character of Dracula on. The vampire in Stoker's novel not only shared the same name as Vlad Tepes (Dracula), but also the location which he was from. Many other elements from his novel were also born out of local superstitions and folklore from the Romanian area – the form of vampire (which consistently aligned with the Romanian superstitions), the setting he used (the Carpathian Mountains – nowhere else in the world were the people so preoccupied with vampire beliefs and superstitions than in Eastern Europe), the types of animals associated with vampires including many superstitions about the bat, garlic as protection against vampires, and then methods of slaying vampires (Kirtley, 1956, para. 136-138).

These similarities have caused many people to associate Romania with the vampire Dracula. In order to attract tourists, Romania is in turn trying to capitalize on this international popularity by advertising him. In this time of economic turmoil and with a cash-strapped government, Romania is trying to utilize all possible assets to attract tourists and use them to help support the economy. The development of the tourist infrastructure is the highest priority of the Ministry of Tourism in Romania ("Romania" 2002). By far, Dracula is the greatest tourist asset – already attracting more tourists than anything else in Romania ("Romania" 2002). Thus Romania has embarked on many projects it can use to take advantage of this international fame. The greatest area in which this can be seen is the plans to build a "Dracula park." This theme park will be based on Bram Stoker's Dracula and will consist of a Disney-style theme park, complete with a modern version of Dracula's ancient castle (with special effects and eerie music), restaurants, hotels, a children's zoo and a golf course (Iyman, 2003, para.). Romania hopes to create over three thousand jobs with the theme park and make a projected income of twelve million dollars annually (Ede, 2002, Para).

This park, however, has brought much social and political turmoil. At first, the Romanian government was planning on building it near the city of Sighisoara, which was close to the setting for the novel. This brought on much political upheaval because Sighisoara is the site of a historic citadel which many people thought would be damaged by the theme park (Ede, 2002, Para). The 520-acre park would also have hurt an ancient forest of protected virgin oaks (Iyman, 2003, para.). This brought on severe opposition from conservationists. Another problem that would have arisen with the Sighisoara location was accessibility. Sighisoara is more than five hours from the nearest international airport, which would have greatly reduced the number of travelers who would visit the park. In addition to the accessibility problem, developed infrastructure for tourism was extremely lacking near Sighisoara. To build the theme park there would require new roadways and hotels that could support mass tourism. Thus there was an economic reason to locate the park somewhere else with a more highly developed tourist infrastructure and a political reason not to build near Sighisoara. Consequently, the park's new planned location is just north of Bucharest (the capital city of Romania) near Lake Snagov (Iyman, 2003, para.). Snagov is the location of the monastery where Vlad Tepes is believed to have been buried. The problem with Snagov is that it is neither where Vlad ruled nor is it mentioned by Stoker in his novel at all. This presented a problem to the Romanian Tourist Ministry because the park was supposed to be based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. Nevertheless, for economic and political reasons, they are building the park near Bucharest.

A second major problem, besides the problem of location, was the character used for the park. Dracula Park is based on Bram Stoker's Dracula, rather than the historic character of Vlad Tepes, as Stoker's Dracula is the one with the most international recognition. This brings up a social problem. The Dracula themed park will centralize on the fictitious elements of Stoker's Dracula as well as present Vlad Tepes as a blood sucking vampire. Romanians have two diverse views of Vlad Tepes, neither of which view him as a blood sucking vampire. Many Romanians view Vlad as a national hero, one who ensured order and justice, and valiantly led his country in opposition to the Turks and protected it from the Empire, albeit by severe methods (Boia, 2001, para. 226). On the other hand, other Romanians view him as a stain on Romania's history, a cruel tyrant and a shame on their national pride. Neither of these groups appreciate the idea of using Stoker's Dracula as a national icon. The Romanians who view Vlad as a hero do not like the distortion of making him into a blood sucking monster. The Romanians who think of Tepes as a fiend do not think he should be used as a commercial for Romania at all, and certainly not in one portraying him as being any more of a monster than they already view him as being. None-the-less, Romania is merely using the authentic elements of Tepes as a tool with which to sell the popular fictitious character, Dracula.

This problem of advertising Vlad Tepes as a vampire brings to light an interesting relation between the Dracula Park and Bram Stoker's book. Few people with a developed critical sense would label Stoker's book as a "successful" novel (Kirtley, 1956, para. 138). Yet, it has lasted for well over a century and been almost idolistically famous. This is a result of the combination of the real and surreal elements that Stoker used in writing Dracula (Kirtley, 1956, para. 138). Stoker pumped his book with historic and authentic elements and added them to his fictional and purely mythical story to create an overwhelmingly popular novel. Stoker took the historic figure of Vlad Tepes, added the mythical elements of a vampire to him and used him as the basis for Dracula. He implemented several authentic superstitions about vampires that many people already had at the time of the book's writing and used them to give a sense of reality to his novel. The ironic thing about this is that Romania seems to be following the same model in its creation of Dracula Park. Romania is taking Bram Stoker's fictional character and trying to combine it with their historic figure, as well as trying to be as authentic as possible with location. Romania is using the fictional character of Dracula, combining it with enough authenticity for tourists to buy it and selling it as a package deal with Dracula Park. In the end, Romania is more concerned with the profit they can make from international tourism than in being historically accurate. It is clear that Romania is making decisions based on politics and economics rather than how authenticity would dictate, by producing what international popular imagination demands. They will give tourists what they want – the vampire Dracula as made by Stoker rather than the authentic product of history, Vlad Tepes.

The Wallachian prince Vlad Tepes has served as a source of national pride, national shame, a vampire myth, and now a combination of historic/fictional tourist fascination. Dracula: dark villain, brave hero, bloody vampire, just leader, unjust tyrant, fierce impaler, fearless ruler, unwanted stain, or idolized source of national pride and identity? After the development of Dracula Park, he will be all these! Romania has combined historic/fiction and authentic/surreal in an effort to boost the economy of Romania, by using Vlad Tepes in the development of Dracula Park – this all done in an effort to cash in on Dracula's international fame.

References

Boia, L. (2001). SALVEAZA – ROMANIA. Reaktion Books Ltd.

Denis, (2004, September) Dracula Castle. Retrieved from http:// www.infohub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68.

Ede P. M. (2002). Bloody Hell! Retrieved from http://partneraccess.oclc.org/wcpa/servlet/OUFrame?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffirstsearch.oclc.org%2FWebZ%2FDARead%3Fsessionid%3D0%3Akey%3D0261-3131%2528*%252932%253A2%253C*%253E*%25260%2526fceab8ddaa8b2722e71c5c96b15391bfb65e00a72f8a1386c6e2f15ae5d52e72%26isFromResolver%3Dtrue%26resolverLinkApi%3Ddaa&title=%26OpenUrl.FullText%3B&sessionid=D60E8CF1FD00F31B3F0A6829C9236DD8.one.

Iyman, E. J. (2003). Romania Turns to Dracula to Boost Tourist Inflow. Retrieved from http://www.indianexpress.com/oldstory.php?storyid=19475.

Kirtly, Bacil F. (1956). Dracula, the Monastic Chronicles and Slavic Folklore. West Virginia University, 133-139. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4317579.pdf.

Praoveanu, I. (n.d.) Dracula Between Legend and True History. Retrieved March 21, 2009, from http://brancastlemuseum.ro/indexfrm_en.htm.

Romania Country Commercial Guide FY2002 Tourism Infrastructure. (2002). Retrieved form http://www.factbook.net/countryreports/ro/Ro_Tourism.htm.