Kristen Swanson, Ph.D., a professor of Strategic Communication at Northern Arizona University has been researching tourism retailing and souvenirs for the past 20 years. Her research helps Northern Arizona businesses tap into over the more than $2 billion that is spent on retail items by visitors to Arizona every year.
“Souvenirs are often dismissed as unimportant,” said Swanson. “However, businesses that dismiss souvenirs are dismissing potential revenue from the sale of those souvenirs.” One of her studies entitled, “Tourists’ and Retailers’ Perceptions of Souvenirs,” found that tourists to the Southwest purchase a broad range of goods. Visitors are looking to buy crafts, antiques, clothing, jewelry, art, local foods, books, postcards and mementos in moderate price ranges that are sometimes known as kitsch or curios.
“There’s an image problem with curios. Even though we want to buy the $2.99 shot glass, we don’t want to sell it,” said Swanson. “When you compare Flagstaff to other tourist communities, we just don’t have the souvenir shops.” When a friend visited from out of town, they searched Flagstaff in vain for an imprinted shot glass for her friend’s souvenir collection. “I have since learned that we could have found one at the Visitor Center, but we didn’t go there during our search.”
“Shopping is part of the travel experience. Even people who hate shopping, when they are a tourist, they will shop for a remembrance of their trip,” Swanson explained. Retailers may underestimate the value of curios or kitsch because they view them as plastic items rather than the visitor experiences that the items represent. “A souvenir is all in our head, in terms of the memories it represents. It’s hard to get a retailer to realize that,” said the professor who authored the report, which recommended that retailers diversify their product offerings and offer distinctive alternatives to neighboring stores. The purpose of the study was to assess southwestern retailers’ knowledge of tourists’ souvenir purchase behavior. By enhancing the tourists’ souvenir shopping experience, retailers can increase sales.
According to a report by Dean Runyan Associates, tourists to Arizona spent a whopping $2.5 billion on retail items like hats, t-shirts and sunglasses, compared to $2.6 billion spent on hotels and other accommodations in 2012.
“When you are a tourist, you have left your ordinary life. You are now in the non-ordinary where you spend your money differently, you eat differently and you use your time differently. You spend differently, giving yourself permission to buy things you wouldn’t normally purchase,” the researcher explained. People cannot remain in the extraordinary state indefinitely. But they can take with them a tangible piece of the extraordinary, by means of a souvenir, to remind them of their experience.
New studies have uncovered a hierarchy of souvenir purchases based on the number of times the tourist has visited a destination. First-time visitors are the most likely to make a souvenir purchase, and they will buy the less-expensive iconic bumper stickers, key chains, shot glasses and other items. But the more often a tourist visits the same location, the more selective they become in their purchases. They may buy fewer items, but the items they purchase are more likely planned purchases, and include more expensive items such as jewelry, fine art or home fashions.
“When they come back again, they come to the same store, they remember the store,” said Swanson of second- or third-time tourists. “They put more thought into their purchases, which tend to be more expensive and more meaningful.”
“Our retailers do a really good job of that beautiful piece of jewelry, artwork or rug for those who love Flagstaff and come back time and time again. They do that really well,” Swanson said about meeting returning visitors’ souvenir shopping needs. But the expert sees a void in the Flagstaff souvenir market as it pertains to the first-timer. The first purchase is a “marker” of the place that helps visitors remember their experience and hopefully reminds them to go back to that place for return visits.
“You can wear souvenirs or you can display them in your home,” said Swanson, a long-time Flagstaff resident. “A souvenir can be a conversation piece. Souvenirs are important because they can start the conversation. A souvenir is a start of a story – not even the start, it IS the story. And part of the routine of travel is to bring something back for others who didn’t go.”
“I hope that retail businesses in Flagstaff will consider souvenirs as an important part of their product mix,” concluded Swanson. “I hope that businesses that include souvenirs as part of their product mix will consider having a unique product mix that is different from their competitors so that tourists have purchase options.” FBN
By Stacey Wittig
Flagstaff Business News