The word “castle” captures public attention, raises interest, and instills nostalgic feelings, but also sadness because of its uncertain future.This raises the question: is there anything that can be done about castles being rendered derelict?

The castles and citadels of Transylvania form the most significant part of the province’s cultural heritage, despite failures in utilizing their potential value. The communist period and the difficult economic situation that followed has made the rehabilitation of these buildings difficult until the present day. Renovating Transylvania’s castles could add an increased socio-cultural value and a significant economical impact to the region. 

The castles of Transylvania can serve the purpose of improving the attractiveness of tourism and tourist accommodation capacity, local and regional development through culture, development of SME sector in their use of land and buildings.

We would like to contribute to the creation of a network, a strategic approach and long-term vision for the marketing of economic and social potential of castles in Transylvania through methods of local and regional planning, by attracting the necessary alternative resources for the rehabilitation, and creating an informational network of experts in different fields that have an important role in achieving sustainability of the built cultural heritage of Romania and Europe.

The project is directly addressed to owners and managers of castles, experts, organizations and civil institutions, local governments that have a role in restoration and sustainable development, local communities that have in their nearby at least a castle and European organizations involved in protecting the built cultural heritage.

The project has three very important goals and in order to achieve them we need to know the problems of the castle owners and managers:

·        develop a strategic profile of the castles and manors in Transylvania, creating a medium-term strategy, key elements of success and key initiatives,

·        creating a modular methodology based on well-established criteria and indicators, which will be available to any castle owner or manager and on which they can subsequently develop operational plans for economic recovery and / or social marketing in a sustainable way,

·     creating a network of experts from fields that are related to the marketing of castles (legal, architectural, marketing, design, local and regional development, management, private, public and community resources, interior decorating, gardening and landscaping parks, etc.) .