Cultural Heritage and Souvenir Consumption Dynamics
Summary
Cultural heritage and souvenir consumption intersect through complex social, economic and emotional processes. Souvenirs serve as tangible embodiments of heritage, linking travellers to places and traditions while generating income for local communities and cultural institutions. Their value arises not only from material attributes but from symbolic meanings, memory work and identity reinforcement. Research has traced how heritage crafts and artefacts are transformed into marketable products, how consumer preferences evolve with changing notions of authenticity and creativity, and how souvenirs contribute to post-holiday memory stimulation or forgetting. These dynamics are shaped by broader debates on commodification, sustainability and the preservation of intangible cultural resources. Understanding these interactions requires interdisciplinary insights from tourism studies, sociology, cultural economics and design theory, with implications for policy, heritage management and retail practice worldwide.
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Cultural Heritage and Souvenir Consumption Dynamics publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in cultural heritage and souvenir consumption dynamics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Cultural heritage: The tangible and intangible legacy of past generations, encompassing monuments, artefacts, traditions and practices valued by communities.
Souvenir: A material object acquired during travel that embodies memories, symbols or meanings associated with a destination or cultural experience.
Perceived value: An individual’s holistic evaluation of a product’s benefits relative to its costs, including functional, emotional and symbolic dimensions.
Cultural sustainability: The maintenance and responsible transmission of cultural meanings and traditions through product design, resource management and consumption practices.
References
- Post-holiday memory work: Everyday encounters with fridge magnets. Annals of Tourism Research (2024).
- A Study on Consumers’ Preferences for the Palace Museum’s Cultural and Creative Products from the Perspective of Cultural Sustainability. Sustainability (2019).
- Transforming “Ritual Cultural Features” into “Modern Product Forms”: A Case Study of Ancient Chinese Ritual Vessels. Religions (2022).
- Souvenirs Development Related to Cultural Heritage: A Thematic Review. Sustainability (2023).
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