Madrid - A tiny Spanish village that became famous after it was painted blue for a promotion is set to become home to the world’s first Smurf theme park.
The traditional Andalucian village was once white-washed, but locals agreed to the unusual colour change in 2011 when approached by Sony about the release of The Smurfs in 3D film.
The PR stunt involved painting all the houses blue and made the village such an unexpected tourist destination that villagers voted to keep the colour.
Now the village of Júzcar, 21km from the historic town of Ronda, will receive a £37-million (R669m) investment to create the world’s first Smurf theme park. The village has so far managed to attract more than 200 000 tourists and the theme park will be a direct result of the public interest.
Local council officials say the theme park will create 200 jobs in the region when it’s finished.
It will cost £36.9m to build, but tourism officials hope it will bring in at least £11m a year to the region.
In Spain, Smurfs are known as pifutos and project managers say that they hope the family theme park will target families of children aged two to 12.
While the Smurfs – originally the creation of Belgian comics artist Pierre Culliford – have enjoyed huge success as toys, and as TV, film and videogame characters, the Spanish theme park would be a world’s only such location dedicated to the little creatures.
Small sections of other theme parts, notably in America, were briefly dedicated to the Smurfs but mostly were later phased out.
It means that the Smurf park will be the only tourism site in the world dedicated to les Schtroumpfs as they are known in their original French version.
A Smurf-themed park, Big Bang Schtroumpf, operated in France in the 1980s and 1990s but Smurfs disappeared from the venue after the park was bought out by another company. – Daily Mail