The other kingdom of folktales: The local community perspective on folktale touristification in the Belgian Ardennes

Traveling to visit places for their stories is not a recent phenomenon. Yet, the development of pop culture through media has pushed this phenomenon even further, forcing the tourism industry to consider the influence of pop culture on tourists. Compared to TV shows, movies and literature, folktales have received less attention from scholars. Yet, folktales and tourism can be combined to create an experience that blends reality and fantasy, that produces a more unique, original, and sometimes even more authentic experience for tourists. Consequently, a majority of tourism research focussed on the tourist perspective, leaving the local community perspective merely a side note. Therefore, this study looked at how locals evaluate and perceive the touristification of folktales. 16 Interviews were done in the Belgian Ardennes, a region still in the figuring things out when it comes to the touristification of folktales. Folktales and tourism are two important characteristics of the Belgian Ardennes. Tourism is one of the main economic sectors of the region, and folktales and traditions are what makes the region so rich and unique. The outcome of this study showed that the interviewed locals were supportive of the touristification of folktales as they perceived it to be a way to have a meaningful experience, to reconnect with their heritage, and to preserve and valorise it better. It is the impacts often associated with touristification of which the interviewees were more sceptical. Therefore, they perceive certain ways and places to touristy folktales to be more meaningful than others. However, the connections of interviewees to folktales and to tourism in the region influenced their answers, providing more nuanced outcomes. From a conceptual approach, the way locals perceive and evaluate the touristification of folktales also seems to be influenced by a more popular approach to folktales which tends to be static compared to the scholar approach that sees folktales as dynamic. This results in an interesting discussion on the conceptualisation of folktale touristification.