MADRID: Spain is ready to set world’s first Smurf Park in its city Lleida, a project that will create 200 jobs in the region.
The project dedicated to the little blue characters known as ‘pifutos’ in Spanish will have set-up fees of €47 million ($57.8 million), Lleida’s town hall said on Thursday. Expected revenues will be €14 million in the first year.
The family theme park will target families of children aged two to 12, according to Spain’s 20 minutos.
While the Smurfs — originally the creation of Belgian comics artist Pierre Culliford — have enjoyed huge success as toys, and as television, film and video game characters, the Spanish theme park would be a world’s only such location dedicated to the little creatures.
But the Smurf park will not be the first tourism site in Spain dedicated to ‘les Schtroumpfs’ as they are known in their original French version.
In what was meant to be a short-lived publicity stunt for the Spanish premiere of The Smurfs in 3D movie in 2011, the Andalusian village of Júzcar saw all of its houses painted blue.
Producers said houses would be repainted white after the marketing stunt was over, but locals saw a money-making possibility and left their homes blue. They have so far managed to attract over 200,000 tourists with the unique colour scheme.
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.
