In most contemporary museums and galleries “gift shops” offer as “souvenirs” products that reflect and represent their collections or artefacts (Swanson & Timothy, 2012). The purchase of souvenirs can transform an intangible experience into a tangible, lasting memory of the visitor's engagement with these spaces and objects (Collins-Kreiner & Zins, 2011). However, the mass-market production of these souvenirs may, in fact, detach the visitor from the actual heritage experience due to their unsustainable, globalised manufacture, disposability, and confused styling (Errington, 1998). Gift shops have at times been described as “inauthentic” and “homogenised” (Boorstin, 1961), “commodified products”, “imitations”, “deceptions” (Greenwood, 1997), “staged” (MacCannell, 1973), “socially constructed interpretation of the genuineness of observable things”, or “mass standardisations oriented towards the export market” (MacCannell, 1989).

Technological innovation has altered the consumption of tourism products and experiences (Andersson, 2007; Gretzel, Fesenmaier, Formica, & O’Leary, 2006) allowing for the creation of tourist experiences that are memorable and compelling (Neuhofer, Buhalis, & Ladkin, 2012; Pine & Gilmore, 1999), sensuous (Crouch & Desforges, 2003) and creative (Richards & Wilson, 2006). Aided by these developments a creative group has emerged among tourists of “empowered consumers [who] actively participate in (re) constructing their everyday experiences at home and in the world” (Gretzel & Jamal, 2009) and who seek individualised experiences of the spaces they visit in order to increase their knowledge and promote self-development. In this way co-creative experiences are produced that are unique to each visitor and more meaningful than externally staged and scripted tourist experiences.