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IMPRONTE VIVE vol. 3 - The Big Business of Souvenirs (spoiler: there’s nothing romantic about it)
April 2, 2025
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🌍 Global Souvenirs and Identities for Sale
You can buy one on Amazon. Or from a street vendor near your house. Maybe it's a plastic Eiffel Tower made in China—perfect for your living room shelf. The only problem? You’ve never been to Paris.
Welcome to the paradox of the 2.0 souvenir: an object meant to recall a place, now completely disconnected from it. That’s globalization, baby—where everything is everywhere, but nothing truly belongs to anyone.
And so, the modern tourist—often more rushed than curious—settles for a ready-made stereotype. And what about the locals? Well, they often adapt, repackaging their culture into an “Instagram-friendly” version, neatly framed in a fridge magnet or a t-shirt that says I ❤️ [insert random city here].
But how did we go from soulful relics to duty-free junk? Spoiler: it wasn’t always plastic and clichés.
🔙 But It Wasn’t Always Like This…
Back in the 17th century, during the Grand Tour (an educational journey for Europe’s elite), travelers collected art, jewelry, porcelain—not to stuff into a Ryanair suitcase, but to bring home pieces of the world. Real memories that told stories of encounters, glances, and discoveries.
Over time, souvenirs changed. But the need behind them remains the same: to give tangible form to the memory of a trip. Sometimes, a souvenir even becomes a fetish—not in the creepy sense, but as an object holding emotions, dreams, and meanings. A kind of personal talisman, proof that we were there.
Except today, instead of a talisman, we often take home mass-produced junk. Forget intimate memories—it’s capitalism on a shopping spree.
🎰 The Big Business of Souvenirs
(spoiler: there’s nothing romantic about it)
Think souvenirs are just cute little keepsakes to remind you of getting lost in Lisbon? Think again. Behind every magnet stand is a billion-dollar industry.
$200 billion – The annual value of the global gifts and souvenirs market (Source)
70% – The percentage of all this stuff that comes from China, no matter where you’ve been. Venice? Paris? Machu Picchu? All made in Shenzhen (Source)
€700 million – The value of Italy’s souvenir market alone. From plastic gondolas to ceramic pizzas with built-in thermometers (Source)
$14.4 billion – The souvenir market in the U.S., where every theme park has its own “memory” shop filled with mass-produced trinkets you’ll soon forget in a drawer (Source)
The point? We’ve become so used to buying the idea of a place that we no longer notice whether the object we take home tells a real story—or if it’s just a piece of plastic disguised as a memory.
🎨 We Just Got Back from Morocco—Check Out Our RECAPPINO
📚 This Month’s Recommendations:
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A collection of essays exploring the new frontier of experiential travel, where active participation can become a form of enrichment—or yet another form of cultural appropriation.
*Tourists Hate Club was written by Giulia, ORMA’s co-founder, during one of her trips. It’s available HERE: touristshateclub.com
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