souvenir from a place of interest
a thing that is kept as a reminder of a person, place, or event.
Initial thoughts
main problems problems: sustainability (waste, materials, quantity, how its used), learning, lack of purpose, lack of cultrual appropriation and profits of tourism+souvenirs not going back to local community
Sustainability
Places of Interest
Tourism: foreign counties, significant cities
Historical: heritage sites, historical landmarks,
Culture and Language
learning
sustainabaility - materials, use (single use, has no purpose ..), disposal (waste)
lack of purpose
Cultural appropriation
Using authentic and factual information: It is a big problem that souvenirs inaccurately depict
cultural appropriation
economy
possible clients/ target audience
tourists
collectors
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who - tourists, travellers, collectors (antique, other ..), diffrent age groups - who is interested and will use
cultural appreciation + supporting the local areas - which places (list), specific groups, areas of poverty.., authentic and factual infomation (links to learning)
Waste
Ensuring souvenir products sustainability: Inorder to ensure the sustainability of souvenirs we need to consider: how they are made, what they are made out of, how they are used and how they are disposed.
How to solve: encourage souvenirs that are useful and last longer, making sure they are made from sustainable materials and using environmentally conscious processes (production, use, disposal)
Souvenirs can generate a lot of waste: Typically 'souvenirs' are often useless, cheap items that tourists buy and are soon to be disregarded. Without any actual use, these decorative items are of no real significance to their owner who brought these products. Souvenirs are seen as important for their sentimental value and not much else, but this means they are still often easily forgotten about and wasted. We need to create souvenirs that are useful in a way that is important to costumers and encourage less people to bin these products and therefore reduce the overall environmental impact.
Learning/ Education
Encouraging learning through souvenirs. As a token symbol of a place which is probably foreign to the costumer, who is likely a tourist, souvenirs hold little value apart from the personal signifance for that person. If we encourage positive and fun ways to better understand and educate ourselves about the foreign places people visit and keep souvenirs of it could have a far more signficant and impactful significance to costumers. This should be done in a way that appreciates the authentic culture and language of the places, using reliable information from the people themselves. Therefore discouraging any distance between tourists and local people, encouraging a positive relationship that prevents any discrimination, stereotypes or negative views of different cultures and people that differ from tourists expectations of a destination. This is particularly relevant for the distance between western countries and the west of the world, where a truly positive relationship between western tourists and the third world countries they visit commonly does not exist.
Economy
Culture
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age groups - target audiences
types of souvenirs
waste > suistanability
implement/ involve learning
purpose of souvenirs > disregarded, not useful
cultural appropriation
language
local communities - area - land
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Who? collectors, tourists, antique
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where? Tourists travel anywhere in the world and therefore tourism is everywhere but there are particularly affected and damaged by such a mass influx of people coming into the area.
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possible items: maps, snow globes, sustainabe clothing
my interests - jewellery, macrame