The Dracula Dilemma

Tourism, Identity and the State in Romania

Duncan Light

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317035312
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

For many in the West, Romania is synonymous with Count Dracula. Since the publication of Bram Stoker's famous novel in 1897 Transylvania (and by extension, Romania) has become inseparable in the Western imagination with Dracula, vampires and the supernatural. Moreover, since the late 1960s Western tourists have travelled to Transylvania on their own searches for the literary and supernatural roots of the Dracula myth. Such 'Dracula tourism' presents Romania with a dilemma. On one hand, Dracula is Romania's unique selling point and has considerable potential to be exploited for economic gain. On the other hand, the whole notion of vampires and the supernatural is starkly at odds with Romania's self-image as a modern, developed, European state. This book examines the way that Romania has negotiated Dracula tourism over the past four decades. During the communist period (up to 1989) the Romanian state did almost nothing to encourage such tourism but reluctantly tolerated it. However, some discrete local initiatives were developed to cater for Dracula enthusiasts that operated at the margins of legality in a communist state. In the post-communist period (after 1989) any attempt to censor Dracula has disappeared and the private sector in Romania has been swift to exploit the commercial possibilities of the Count. However, the Romanian state remains ambivalent about Dracula and continues to be reluctant to encourage or promote Dracula tourism. As such Romania's dilemma with Dracula remains unresolved.

Chapter 1

Tourism, Identity and Popular Culture

This book focuses on the development of ‘Dracula tourism’ in Romania and the responses of the Romanian authorities to this form of tourism However, before examining the whole Dracula phenomenon and the travel that it has generated, this chapter provides an academic contextualization of the key concepts and issues that will be explored in later chapters. The first section examines the relationship between tourism and identity, with particular reference to the ways that tourism is implicated in the construction and projection of national identities. The discussion also considers the role of the state in tourism development to establish a context for considering the Romanian’s state’s responses to Dracula tourism. The second section examines the nature of literary and film-induced tourism, focusing on the myths about places that are created and diffused through literature and cinema. This provides a framework for understanding Dracula tourism as a form of literary or screen tourism.

Tourism and Identity

The concept of identity – how we define ourselves, whether individually or collectively – has risen to the forefront of social science research in recent decades. Contemporary thinking rejects essentialist notions of identities as somehow given, coherent and static. Instead, identities are treated as being socially constructed in diverse and dynamic contexts – and as such ‘senses’ of identity are fluid, situational and sometimes contradictory (S. Hall 1996, Grossberg 1996). The notion of a single unified identity has been superseded by the recognition that identities are multiple. We can define ourselves in many different ways depending on the context in which the defining takes place. In a sense identities are like hats that an individual can change to suit the particular circumstances in which he or she happens to be (Palmer 2005). Similarly, senses of identification also exist at a variety of (sometimes overlapping) scales – from personal identities to group, regional and national identities. Rather than being fixed and stable, identities can be conceptualized as dynamic and created through continuous performance. Moreover, however they are defined, identities are also incomplete, fragmented and constantly in the process of change (Curticapean 2007).

A key aspect of any discussion of identity is the notion of the Other. Identities are relational and oppositional: almost all identities are in some way defined with reference to (or in opposition to) what we are not, as much as by what we are. As such, identities are underpinned by difference. As S. Hall (1996: 5) notes ‘identities can function as points of identification and attachment only because of their capacity to exclude, to leave out, to render “outside”’. Defining or constructing an identity implies defining someone (or somewhere) else as different, as not the same as me/us. Any identity is therefore a simultaneous ‘process of expression and exclusion’ (Abram and Waldren 1997: 6).

Given the current level of academic interest in questions of identity it comes as no surprise that there has been increasing attention over the past decade to the relationship between tourism and identity. In particular, there is a widespread recognition that issues of identity are ever present in discourse about tourism (Lanfant 1995) and that tourism plays a key role in the formation of both individual and collective identities in a globalized world (Burns and Novelli 2006, C.M. Hall 2005, Wearing et al. 2010, White and Frew 2011).

On one level, there has been considerable interest in the significance of tourism for senses of personal identity. One research strand takes as its starting point the position that, in contemporary societies, senses of personal identity are constructed less through work but instead through practices of consumption (Urry 1994). In this context, travel is one form of consumption that can be used as a means of self-expression and self-definition. The choice of holiday type and destination is another way to make a statement about what sort of person we are. Indeed, travel has long been an expression of taste and discernment, and a way of affirming class status (Mowforth and Munt 2009). Over the past two decades, various groupings within the middle classes have increasingly rejected mass tourism and have turned instead to individual travel and/or various ‘alternative’ tourisms. The explosive growth in new types of holiday – including the rise of numerous forms of niche ‘tourisms’ (Novelli 2005) – in new destinations has been the response of the global tourist industry to the rise of what has been termed post-tourism or postmodern tourism (Munt 1994, Urry 2002). Recent studies have argued that participation in alternative tourisms is used by the ‘new middle classes’ as a way of acquiring cultural capital in order to articulate and define class identities (Munt 1994, Mowforth and Munt 2009).

Another research strand has focused on the transformative character of tourism for senses of personal identity. Rejecting the suggestion that tourists themselves are passive collectors of signs and experiences, Franklin (2003) argues that tourists are seeking a sense of personal growth, change and transition. Travel and holidaymaking are conceptualized as an occasion for self-actualization and selfdiscovery (Wang 1999, Urry 2002) and an opportunity for making and remaking senses of self-identity (Wearing et al. 2010). A number of recent studies have examined these issues in the context of what can be broadly termed adventure tourism. In a study of British travellers in Peru, Desforges (2002) noted that many of his interviewees started travelling at moments of uncertainty or crisis in their lives when self-identity was open to question. For such people travel was an opportunity to construct a new biography and to make a new sense of self for the future. Clarke’s (2004) study of working holidaymakers in Australia established that such holidays were opportunities for self-development and argued that many participants returned home having developed confidence, new skills and stronger personal narratives.

At a different scale, there has been increasing attention to the relationship between tourism and national identities. Such senses of belonging and allegiance are complex and multifaceted. National identity arises in tandem with nationalism, an ideology that asserts the primacy of the nation-state as a form of social and political organization. Nationalism promotes and mobilizes the idea of a shared national consciousness in order to foster social cohesion and secure allegiances to the ideal of a nation-state with its own defined territory. Once again this process is founded on difference and exclusion and the formation of national identities involves the simultaneous identification of Others, those (both internal and external to a state) with competing beliefs and aspirations who do not qualify for membership (Graham 2000).

Nevertheless, there is a widespread acceptance that national identities are not innate, timeless and static (despite the claims to the contrary by some nationalist politicians) but instead, like many other identities, are socially constructed at particular times and in particular contexts. Indeed, nations and national identities are as much imaginative constructs as material realities (Gruffudd 1994). For example, Anderson (2006: 6) has famously defined the nation as an ‘imagined political community’, something composed of individuals who will never encounter all the other members of the nation but nevertheless believe that they share something with them. The nationalist project works to create a shared sense of ‘who we are’ – or in Anderson’s words, a ‘deep, horizontal comradeship’ (2006: 7) – among people who have never met and who may otherwise have little in common. Moreover, once created, such a shared identity is not inherently stable, but instead is something that needs to be continually renewed, so that nationbuilding is an ongoing project (A.D. Smith 1991). However, national identities rarely achieve hegemonic status. Instead, as Graham (2000) notes their resonance is compromised by competing allegiances derived from, for example, religion, class, gender, region and ethnicity. Moreover, national identities may be further fractured by individuals or groups within a nation-state who may contest or circumvent dominant inscriptions of nationhood or evoke alternative versions of national identity (Edensor 1998). Overall, then, despite the best efforts of nationalists, national identities are not stable and all-embracing but instead are fluid, dynamic and contextual. Nevertheless, however fragmented and unstable they may be, national identities remain a powerful form of group allegiance and show little sign of weakening in a globalizing world (Pryke 2009).

In order to construct a shared identity, nation-states embark on a process of socialization that is intended to inculcate a collective public culture. This is achieved through, for example, the creation of national institutions, the existence of a mass media and a standardized and publicly funded mass education system (A.D. Smith 1991). Moreover, nation-states seek to anchor themselves in time and space through writing (or inventing) a ‘national’ past and promoting popular attachments to the national territory. In so doing, certain locations are inscribed and celebrated as being places of ‘national’ significance (Edensor 2002, Franklin 2003). Such places include historic buildings, monuments or battlefield sites associated with key events in the nation’s past along with statues, landscapes, landforms, national parks and other sacred sites (A.D. Smith 1988).

However the resonance of national places will be limited unless the wider population understands their significance. This is where the role of tourism in nation-building becomes apparent: there is no better way to appreciate the significance of a national place than by travelling to it. Consequently, as Franklin (2003) argues, nation-states have explicitly used travel and tourism as a means of promoting senses of citizenship and national identity. The growth of the railways in the nineteenth century was something that facilitated travel, enabling people to develop a greater awareness of the national territory and reinforce a sense of belonging to an entity that was larger than the locality. Thus, domestic tourism became an opportunity to ‘perform’ national identity (Edensor 2002). By visiting places of national significance (including national museums) tourists were able to make (and reflect upon) the connection between themselves and the nation (Palmer 1999). Through travel and tourism, national places became sites for affirming collective (national) memory and building popular allegiances (Johnson 1994, Edensor 1997). Far from being trivial or insignificant, tourism is arguably one of the key processes of modernity (Franklin 2003).

Tourism remains important for nation-building in the twenty first century. Nationstates continue to promote domestic travel and tourism as a means for renewing and reproducing senses of national allegiance and identity (Franklin 2003). Indeed, tourism is an established component of the public culture of the modern nationstate (see Horne 1984): it continues to be ‘one of the defining activities of the modern world, shaping the ways in which one relates to and understands self and other, nation and nationness’ (Palmer 2005: 8). The relationship between domestic tourism and the making (and remaking) of national identity is attracting increased academic attention and recent studies have explored this issue in contexts as diverse as America (Pretes 2003); Croatia (Goulding and Domic 2009); England (Palmer 1999, 2003, 2005); India (Edensor 1998); Korea (Park 2010); Scotland (Edensor 1997, 2002); Thailand (Peleggi 1996); and Wales (Pitchford 2008).

In addition to cultivating and building a sense of national identity among their own populations nation-states also seek to project their sense of themselves – their identity – outwards to Others. This is identity-building for an external rather than an internal audience (Light 2001, Pitchford 2008, Kaneva and Popescu 2011). All states seek to present a positive image of themselves to the wider world and to ensure that their unique character and cultural identity is appreciated and respected by other states: this is an affirmation of self on behalf of Others (Lanfant 1995). The interactions with these Others is not a trivial matter. As O’Connor (1993: 68) argues ‘the way in which we see ourselves is substantially determined by the way in which we are seen by others’. As a result nation-states make considerable efforts to project themselves – on their own terms – to the rest of the world. This project can include material objects such as postage stamps, banknotes and coins, iconic buildings and monuments and national stadia (Cresswell 2004, Raento and Brunn 2005, Unwin and Hewitt 2001). Similarly, nation-states can seek to join international organizations – for example, the United Nations or the European Union – as means of declaring their adherence to particular values. Similarly, many states seek to host international meetings, congresses or sporting events as a way of presenting their ‘best face’ to the international community. We only have to look at the enthusiasm with which Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine and Turkey hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in the early 2000s. For these aspirant members of the European Union, the contest was a means to showcase themselves as modern, European countries and to legitimate their claims for future membership (see Szondi 2007).

Tourism is also an important way through which nation-states seek to project their cultural and political identity to the wider world. At this point, the role of the state in the development and promotion of tourism merits fuller consideration (see Light 2007a). Although the political dimensions of tourism have long been neglected (C.M. Hall 1994) there is increasing attention to the role of the state in shaping the nature and character of tourism that takes place within its territory. A state may intervene in the operation and development of tourism in many ways (C.M. Hall 2000, 2005, Harrop and McMillan 2002, Jeffries 2001). For example, through policymaking and planning a state can support and encourage the development of particular forms of tourism in particular locations. Similarly, it may introduce legislation and regulation to provide a framework within which the tourism industry can operate. States may directly provide facilities and infrastructure essential for a successful tourism industry (such as roads or hotels). In addition, most states engage to some degree in the activity of tourism promotion. Such is the importance of tourism that many nation-states have established a government ministry with responsibility for tourism planning and development.

However, the involvement of the state in tourism is not merely confined to ‘technical’ processes of legislation, planning and policy formulation: there is also a cultural politics of tourism development (Burns 2005, Light 2007a). States may use tourism to fulfil particular political agendas (C.M. Hall 1994, Morgan and Pritchard 1998). For example, the choices of which forms of tourism development will (and will not) be encouraged, and for whom, are not neutral or value free. Instead, through such decisions the state assumes the role of the arbiter and definer of cultural meanings (Wood 1984, Cano and Mysyk 2004, Yan and Bramwell 2008, Goulding and Domic 2009). A state will support the development and promotion of those forms of tourism that accord with its sense of political and cultural identity. In addition, states will seek to show off their achievements to their visitors (see Sanchez and Adams (2008) in the case of Cuba). The choice of what will be celebrated for tourism is therefore an ideological one that constitutes a statement of national identity (Wood 1984, Morgan and Pritchard 1998). Through its policies for tourism development and promotion a nation-state can also make a declaration about itself to the wider world and seek to raise its international profile and prestige (Morgan and Pritchard 1998). For this reason many states encourage cultural and heritage tourism, as much for foreign tourists as for their own citizens, as a means to project their history, values and identity to an international audience. More broadly, states can use tourism as an element of their foreign policy and international relations (C.M. Hall 1994, Franklin 2003).

Such is the potency of tourism in projecting a national or cultural identity to the wider world that many states undertake considerable investment in external tourism promotion (C.M. Hall 2000). Indeed, many nation-states are actively attempting to create a unique brand for themselves (Anholt 2010, Pitt et al. 2007). This activity is usually undertaken by a dedicated state agency, most often a National Tourist Office. These organizations do not sell holidays directly but instead aim to create a unique profile for the destination (see Peleggi 1996) and to contribute to economic development through attracting foreign tourists. But the activities of a National Tourist Office are underpinned as much by political as economic imperatives. One of their roles is to present and project a nation-state to the world in a way that flatters and affirms national identity (Lanfant 1995). As such, state-sponsored promotional materials are not value free representations of the particular destination but instead are constructs that are imbued with official (and therefore ideological) viewpoints (Peleggi 1996, Ateljevic and Doorne 2002). Official promotional materials can be ‘read’ as expressions of cultural and political identity (Pritchard and Morgan 2001). They make an overt statement of ‘this is who we are’ and ‘this is how we want you to see us’ (Light 2001: 1055). The same hegemonic narratives of history, culture and identity that are mobilized for domestic nation-building are now articulated for the consumption of an external audience (Peleggi 1996).

Romania is a good example of how state-sponsored tourism promotion can be used for ideological ends. During the socialist era the Ministry of Tourism produced a monthly tourist magazine, available in various foreign languages, the English edition of which was entitled Holidays in Romania. The magazine presented Romania’s diverse attractions for tourism but was also imbued with messages about Romania itself. Many articles asserted Romania’s identity as a socialist state and highlighted the agenda and achievements of socialism. In addition, the overtly nationalist narratives of Romanian history and identity that were dominant during the socialist era (such as an emphasis on indigenous rather than Western influences as the key to understanding Romania’s historical development) were frequently emphasized. Tourist promotion was even employed to exalt the policies and achievements of Nicolae Ceauşescu, the Secretary General of the Romanian Communist Party and later state president.

Since the collapse of Ceauşescu’s dictatorship, Romania’s state-sponsored tourism promotion has been underpinned by a different agenda but one that is equally ideological in nature. In common with the other formerly socialist states of Central/Eastern Europe, Romania has sought to remake itself as a modern, democratic and European state. Tourism promotion has been used to project this new political identity to the West, particularly an image of ‘Europeanness’ that legitimates aspirations for EU entry (see Morgan and Pritchard 1998, D. Hall 1999, 2001, 2010, Szondi 2007, Smith and Puczkó 2011). Unsurprisingly, Romania’s post-socialist tourism promotion is imbued with messages about the ‘new’ Romania and its aspirations (Light 2006, Kaneva and Popescu 2011). Romania now stresses what it shares with the rest of Europe. There is a major emphasis on historical and cultural ties with Western Europe that predate state socialism and that are being resumed in the post-socialist era. Romania is now presented as having a firmly Latin and European heritage, and cultural and architectural links with France are particularly highlighted. There is also a stress on rural traditions and heritage that are presented as having survived four decades of socialism relatively intact. Through such messages, Romania is seeking to project its new identity to the West and ameliorate its image among Western public opinion.

Yet while nation-states may endeavour to encourage particular forms of tourism and promote these to the wider world this project may be subject to contestation. Whether it likes it or not, each nation-state is situated within much broader historical, political and cultural discourses that structure the ways in which particular peoples and places are perceived in the wider world (Morgan and Pritchard 1998, Pritchard and Morgan 2001, Echtner and Prasad 2003, Yan and Santos 2009). Such discourses are grounded in (and reinforce) existing asymmetric power relations, and some states – predominantly those from the West – have more power to represent than others. The result can be ‘representative dissonance’ (Bandyopadhyay and Morais 2005) where a people or place may be represented, not as they would choose to represent themselves, but as more powerful states in the West choose to portray them, frequently in terms of clichés, myths or cultural stereotypes (Echtner and Prasad 2003, Yan and Santos 2009). The reiteration of such stereotypes in tourist brochures (or other forms of popular culture) may, in turn, generate particular forms of externally driven tourism demand and practice that may be unwelcome to the host community (Morgan and Pritchard 1998). Such tourism may even compromise or collide with the cultural and political identity that the state wishes to present to the wider world (see Burns 2005). On the other hand, a state can resist or contest the way that it is represented (Bandyopadhyay and Morais 2005). Hence, tourism may become a site of struggle between a nation-...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Tourism, Identity and Popular Culture
• 2 The Dracula of Literature
• 3 The Historical Dracula
• 4 Dracula Tourism in Socialist Romania
• 5 Fiction, History and Myth at Dracula’s Castles
• 6 Dracula and Tourism in Post-socialist Romania
• 7 ‘Dracula Park’
• 8 Conclusions
• References
• Index