Even though research on tourist souvenirs is quite extensive, it fails to provide a holistic and in-depth perspective on their meanings and their evolution in time and space. Through a symbolic interactionist perspective, the current research aims at filling this gap. We conducted a longitudinal study combining interviews, projective techniques, and observations. Our findings provide a holistic and dynamic approach to tourist souvenirs’ meanings by emphasizing their temporal and spatial evolution through three processes. First, we suggest that decontextualization effects and the negative perceptions of some souvenirs may prevent them from entering home. Second, we consider the spatiality of souvenirs within different home areas depending on the meanings they hold for their owners. We also show that the souvenirs’ meaningfulness can also be reactivated over time. Third, we emphasize ways meaningless souvenirs may leave the home sphere. Finally, we discuss managerial suggestions and propose avenues of future research.

Purpose -Tourists' special possessions are under-studied in consumer research despite their importance in self-identity development. Furthermore, extant studies about tourist souvenirs fail in providing an extensive and in-depth view of souvenirs, and in exploring both their functional and symbolic dimensions. This paper aims to better and deeply understand the symbols and meanings attached to tourist souvenirs as well as the functions they fulfil in contemporary consumption.Design/methodology/approach -A naturalistic interpretive approach has been privileged. A total of 19 informants have been interviewed and observed at home in a triangulation perspective. Interview transcripts, field notes, and pictorial material were analyzed and interpreted through the grounded theory approach.Findings -A new typology of four types of symbolic souvenirs including touristic trinkets, destination stereotypes, paper mementoes, and picked-up objects is developed. The typology is grounded on four major functions souvenirs may fulfil in terms of meanings and identity construction, that is: categorization, self-expression, connectedness, and self-creation.Originality/value -This study contributes to a better knowledge of tourist souvenirs, which is a typical case of consumers' special possessions that may be central in self-identity processes. Considered as powerful ''messengers of meaning'', tourist souvenirs help consumers to maintain material links with cherished past experiences and to convey individual and cultural meanings to their broader existence. Typologies such as the one developed in this paper are crucial not only for researchers but also for marketers and retailers.

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The aim of this paper is to introduce videography as a valuable approach for collecting data, supporting theory-building and disseminating results in tourism research. Visual research is a powerful approach that has been intensively used in the main field of consumer research but surprisingly less often in a tourism context. However, most tourist behaviours and experiences are ‘bright and noisy’ and cannot be fully translated by written productions. This is why we present videography as a research tool in its own right, opening new dimensions to qualitative research. This article aims to discuss the advantages and limitations of video and demonstrates why it is worthwhile to tourism studies. It also explains the steps involved in the production of a video and illustrated by a 20-minute video on tourist souvenirs.

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