Abstract

Souvenirs are part of global and local travel and tourism in all corners of the world. This book portrays souvenirs as expressions of culture and as triggers of cultural change. The volume provides critique and theorisation of souvenirs of places, people and experiences in the context of lives lived at the margins of society, politics, tourism flows and urbanisation. Case studies in sustainable tourism illustrate dynamic ways that consumers and suppliers use souvenirs to respond to, resist and (re)interpret global and local influences upon cultures across informal, hybrid and formal economies.

Jenny Cave is a Senior Lecturer in Tourism and Hospitality Management at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Her background in anthropology, museology and cultural attraction management shapes a research agenda in linkages between tourism, migration and poverty reduction in rural and island peripheries as well as cultural/heritage enterprise and festivals/events in the Pacific, Caribbean and Canada and collective methodologies.

Lee Jolliffe is a Professor of Hospitality and Tourism, University of New Brunswick, Canada. With a museum studies and tourism background, her research interests include studying how culinary heritage and tourism intersect. Recent publications include the edited volume Sugar Heritage and Tourism in Transition (Channel View Publications, 2013) and the co-authored volume (Hilary du Cros and Lee Jolliffe) The Arts and Events (Routledge, 2014).

Tom Baum is Programme Director, Hong Kong University SPACE programmes in Tourism and Hospitality Management at the University of Strathclyde. His research agenda includes: people and work in low skills service work, with a particular focus on the international hospitality and tourism sector as well as human resource development and skills planning and formation, education and training, at a macro (national) and company level.

Tourism and travel is regularly described as a consumption process, an ever progressing relationship between commodities (souvenirs, postcards, etc.) and people's experiences in places and the book Tourism and Souvenirs is certainly an important contribution to this field. The volume provides a grounded framework for the theorisation of souvenirs, makes an important effort to expand the notion of the souvenir and extends the analysis of meanings attached to material objects in the travel experience.

Tourism and Souvenirs contributes to the theory and application of souvenirs by combining advanced conceptual thinking with instructive case studies from diverse settings. The authors are established contributors to the tourism and souvenirs literature. By grouping the various chapters into three parts the book editors have produced a coherent volume for scholars and practitioners.

The work is easy to read and it provides pertinent examples. It touches on important concepts such as identity, including ethnic and place identities, commodification, authenticity, stereotyping, green products, the meanings of souvenirs to people and their importance to places, and the like.

This book is a 'must read' for scholars of sustainability, tourism development and cultural preservation. Innovative grounding in global-local theory is expanded by chapters that traverse individual motive (expectations, goals and values), tourist behavior, souveniring practice, cultural production, authenticity, green development; amongst others. Tourism and Souvenirs constructs original thinking about the influence of souvenirs in tourist motivation, destination image and the attributes that make up the desired tourism experience. Jenny Cave, Lee Jolliffe and Tom Baum have brought together state-of-the-art researchers whose conceptual insights are located in societal and geographic peripheries, but are nonetheless central to theory and practice of the tourism experience.

This book turns the ubiquitous souvenir into a complicated object of memory, emotion, place, livelihoods, ethics and identities. Tourism and Souvenirs is a timely and important collection that captures key developments and debates in tourism studies. It is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the multifaceted relationship between souvenirs and tourism.