A theme park dedicated to Dracula will be built near the Romanian capital rather than in Transylvania.

A feasibility study carried out by PriceWaterhouseCoopers claims the park would attract more than a million tourists a year if it were located near the Romanian capital.

They add just 600,000 visitors would come if it was built in the area where the vampire is said to have come from.

Sighisoara was initially chosen because it gave birth to the 15th century prince Vlad the Impaler.

According to legend, the bloodthirsty prince captured invading Turks and common criminals and impaled them on stakes in public market places. That legend inspired Bram Stoker's 1897 novel of the bloodsucking count.

However, residents and officials in Sighisoara are angry at the results of the study, as they had hoped the park would help revive the struggling local economy.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers is to identify the best location for the park near the capital by March, said Tone.

Bucharest also has alleged ties to the prince. Vlad's body is believed to be buried in a monastery he built on an island of Snagov lake, just north of the capital.

Building the park near the capital would also appease conservationists, who have claimed that intensive tourism and construction would damage a medieval citadel in Sighisoara and a protected oak forest.

Romania hopes the park will bring hundreds of thousands of Western tourists.