Kunst für Touristen: die Welt der Reisenden im Souvenir

In: Sociologus : Zeitschrift für empirische Ethnosoziologie und Ethnopsychologie, Band 44, Heft 1, S. 1-21

Open Access

Abstract

Tourist art (souvenir art, airport art) is produced particularly for the tourist market. Only certain types of traditional arts and crafts are acceptable to the buyer. As souvenirs have to be understandable, they must be adjusted to the cultural background of the tourist, to his cognitive system. Thus arts and crafts of indigenous peoples are subject to changes. Persons who are in contact with tourists' culture (e.g. traders) take influence on form and design of the items. As a result of these changes, souvenirs do contain cultural elements of the tourist's world as well as cultural elements of the foreign country. Hence souvenir art reflects tourists' ideas of the foreign culture. It is part of the tourist's culture perhaps more than part of the foreign culture.