27/08/2026
We spend a lot of time travelling, looking at tourism trends, destinations and how places express their identities. One thing we keep noticing is how similar tourist retail is becoming around the world.
From the familiar language of exoticism across Marrakech, Istanbul, Dubai, Oman and Qatar, to the Mediterranean aesthetic sold in Marseille, Ibiza, Mykonos, Mallorca, Puglia and Lisbon, very different places are increasingly using the same visual shorthand to signal ‘local’.
There is a literal version of this too: almost identical ‘handmade’ bowls, magnets, tote bags, mugs and textiles appearing thousands of miles apart, often with little more than the destination name changed. The BBC has also documented how mass production and counterfeiting are embedded in the souvenir economy. AI is now accelerating the effect, while the environmental cost of producing and shipping huge volumes of low-cost goods sits awkwardly beside the promise of locality.
But the bigger issue is that homogenisation is no longer just happening to the souvenir. It is happening to the idea of travel itself.
Social media, hospitality design, destination marketing and retail increasingly reinforce a reduced set of travel ideals. In doing so, they also strengthen the shorthand megabrands of tourism — the Amalfi Coast, Bali, Ibiza, Mykonos, Marrakech and Los Cabos — whose visual identities become templates for somewhere else.
The risk is that destinations start referencing the success of another place rather than celebrating their own identity. A coastal hotel becomes a version of Amalfi; an island resort becomes a version of Bali; a beach club becomes a version of Ibiza.
That is where destination branding can play a bigger role. Done well, it is a form of soft power: making a place culturally legible on its own terms, encouraging curiosity and broadening where people want to travel.
In a world where the visual language of travel is becoming increasingly global, specificity may be one of the strongest assets a destination has.
