ABSTRACT
The previous chapters have charted Romania’s reluctance to engage with the Western Dracula myth, both during the socialist era and in the first post-socialist decade. In this context, perhaps the most surprising and dramatic development in the evolution of Dracula tourism was the announcement in 2001 that Romania intended to construct ‘Dracula Land’, a theme park based on the vampire Dracula. Billed as the world’s first ‘horror park’, the proposal (later renamed ‘Dracula Park’) represented the first serious attempt by the Romanian state to exploit the commercial possibilities of the vampire Dracula. In this chapter I chart the rise and fall of Dracula Park, principally through examining the way it was reported in the Romanian and international press. In particular I seek to examine the relationship between the project and Romania’s efforts to project an identity to the wider world. At its launch Dracula Park was presented as a confident and forward looking attempt by Romania to exploit the global popularity of Dracula on the country’s own terms in order to re-launch Romanian tourism. However, the project rapidly generated controversy and became the focus of a vigorous campaign of both domestic and international opposition that called into question Romania’s adherence to wider European norms (and, by extension, its readiness for membership of the European Union). This opposition eventually forced the project to be suspended and, later, abandoned.
