Dark tourism in Romania: from concept to reality

Abstract

Romania’s current touristic image is struggling to maintain itself above a floating point. This situation is due to the fact that the country’s brand has been very poorly designed, not being able to underline the true value of its cultural heritage, thus making it hardly distinguishable among other destinations. To do just this, we have decided that the best way is to first come up with a set of proper regional brands and from there on work our way up to creating a national brand that would be based on a solid regional structure. We think that Transylvania is the perfect place to start Romania’s rebranding process, firstly because it lies closest to the western part of Europe making it more accessible; and secondly because it already is very popular among foreign tourists and by probing deeper into the market we shall be able to maximize its touristic potential. Our plan is to implement a new form of tourism, for Romania, which has proven to be very popular in Western Europe and should guarantee a great success for Transylvania too. The type of tourism that we are referring to is dark tourism. Transylvania contains a great deal of historical sites that are renowned for the gruesome punishments or bloody executions that have take place in the country’s past, thus making it an excellent candidate for this type of tourism. Dark tourism represents the perfect choice for creating a solid, mature touristic brand because it is able to correctly promote and conserve the country’s true historical origins by laying on the table concrete places and facts regarding our past, while at the same time being able to keep up with current trends that are evolving in the global scene of tourism. So, through dark tourism Transylvania shall become a more attractive touristic destination. www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541 (on-line) WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, Vol 139, © 2010 WIT Press Sustainable Tourism IV 581 doi:10.2495/ST100 1 50