Spanish village painted blue for PR stunt to host world's first Smurf theme park
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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 movie.
The PR stunt involved painting all the houses in a Spanish village blue and made the village such an unexpected tourist destination that villagers voted to keep the unusual house colour.
The Spanish village of Juzcar was painted blue in 2011 as a publicity stunt for the Smurfs movie
Now the village of Juzcar, 13 miles form the historic town of Ronda, will receive a £37million investment to create the world's first Smurf theme park.
The unusual village has so far managed to attract more than 200,000 tourists with the unique colour scheme 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.
Sony offered to return the buildings to their original whitewashed state, but villagers decided to keep their homes blue as they were attracting tourists
The unusual blue village has seen more than 200,000 visitors since changing colour
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It will cost £36.9million to build, but tourism officials hope it will bring in at least £11million 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 television, film and video game characters, the Spanish theme park would be a world's only such location dedicated to the little creatures.
A local Smurf-related industry has popped up in the area, spurring the idea of creating a theme park
Officials hope the Smurfs theme park will give the area an £11million-a-year boost
Small sections of other theme parts notably in America were briefly dedicated to this Smurf's but mostly were later phased out.
It means that the Smurf park will be the only tourism site in the world totally 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.
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