A vacation is never really a vacation for Rodney Lattimore. When he and his family go to an attraction or amusement park, they almost always part ways when they pass through the gate.

“I’ll tell them that I’ll see them in an hour or two. I’m going to the gift shop,” says Lattimore, retail/food and beverage manager for Chimney Rock Park. “I’m always shopping. Not to steal ideas, but to enlighten myself to what possibly I can do.”

He doesn’t mind that finding the newest, hottest, and most cutting-edge souvenirs to fill his Chimney Rock, N.C., natural park goes well beyond the standard 9-to-5 day. Lattimore believes that a strong souvenir will benefit his attraction as well as enhance the experience of his guests.

“We want to make sure the souvenir they take home is a lasting memory—something that they’re going to be proud of and something that’s going to reflect their visit,” he says. “And hopefully, they’re going to share it with other people and that will bring them back as well.”

Like the white-knuckled screams and howls that accompany a loop-filled roller-coaster ride, a souvenir goes hand-in-hand with most trips to an amusement park or attraction. They can range from the $1.99 “My friends went to Florida and all they got me was this lousy magnet” to the $9.99 decorative spoon set to the $49.99 afghan emblazed with a park’s logo; yet all three varieties of these souvenirs, and everything in between, require much work and planning on the part of the park, the supplier, and the manufacturer to be successful.

Putting Quality First
When Gavin Zaid, owner and president of FlashGlo, started the Encinitas, Calif.-based company
in the uncertain and tumultuous times of late 2001, he made a conscious decision. He wanted his customers to have upbeat products that didn’t cost them a lot of money.

That’s why most of his flashing and glowing novelties wholesale for about $5 or less. “These low-priced items aren’t as much affected by the failing economy,” Zaid says. “People buy them because they has a ‘wow appeal.’ They see something and go, ‘Wow, I have to have that.’”

While his impulse-driven product line of glowing sticks, strobe rings, and blinking magnetic buttons in the shapes of killer whales, seahorses, and bats come at a reasonable cost, he says they don’t shirk on quality.

“Most companies are bulk product importers,” Zaid says. “We’re different in that we actually design many of the products ourselves. That’s our primary advantage—98 percent of our competitors are basically selling the same thing.”

A personal touch and some handmade care helped the company to draw in some additional orders from a big player in the business, Busch Gardens.

Zaid says the amusement park was buying some low-end merchandise from overseas, and one of the managers decided to shop around and work with FlashGlo.

“In the end, our product sold 4-to-1, and the other department manager buyers started buying from us,” he says. “It’s a case where it’s our product isn’t necessarily the cheapest, but you’re not going to get two or three returns for every sale because it breaks.”

Consumers don’t want to fill their desktops, drawers, and closets with junk anymore, says Gary Popp, director of retail, Hersheypark, in Hershey, Pa. “They’re looking for a better-quality piece. They’re driven by the fashion market, and they’re not going to accept that cheap see-through T-shirt.”

Peter J. Seresky doesn’t know if there’s still a place for poorly made products in the world’s amusement park gift shops. “We don’t go there,” says Seresky, one of the principals of souvenir supplier Nanco, based in Chelsea, Mass. “For some importers, that’s all they do. We made a decision to go after the graphics side of it. We wanted to be innovative and to be known as a company that is design and product driven, instead of price-point driven.”

He’s also part of another dramatic shift in the souvenir industry. “Ten, 15 years ago, you would go into an amusement park or attraction and the souvenirs were thrown on a shelf,” he says.
Now, the packaging, the merchandising, and the various choices offered make all the difference. “It’s not about the white coffee mug anymore necessarily,” Seresky says. “It’s about different-shaped mugs with different decal treatments.”

Promote Your Own Identity
With close to 40 shops on its grounds, Dollywood is teeming with a wide variety of possible ways for people to spend their money. The Pigeon Forge, Tenn., hotspot sells licensed products from SpongeBob SquarePants to Scooby-Doo to Bob the Builder, but recently it started something new: experiential retail.

An artist has captured the different icons of the park—a church, a gristmill, and a train—and placed it on several “classier” items, such as afghans, serving trays, and wall hangings, says Kent Reed, Dollywood’s senior operations manager.

“It has enhanced the souvenir category,” he says. “Our customer calls for it here because we are a shopping park.”

Chimney Rock Park also uses an icon approach rather than strictly relying on its namesake, Lattimore says. “We have found that our corporate logo isn’t best to use on merchandise. It’s not flashy.”

They play on a theme of the park’s focal point, “The Chimney” with a flag raised, and how they present it. Using sketch art, full photography, paintings, and engraved pieces, visitors can take home a colorful mix of memories of the towering 315-foot-tall rock monolith. “We don’t want everything to look alike,” he says.

Neither does Hersheypark. They offer their guests a mix of the trendy pop-culture souvenirs, but they like to concentrate on ones that are specific to the park, Popp says.

“We’re really focused on the Hershey destination as a package,” he says. “We’ve gone away from the generic souvenirs and really tried to customize the Hershey souvenirs. We’re not just throwing artwork on something, but we’re really developing it so it shows a better souvenir item.”

Popp says the Hershey product characters have become very popular, and guests will find the chocolate likenesses of Hershey’s Kisses, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Hershey’s Chocolate on many products, from soft pillows to plastic cups to T-shirts.

Finding What’s Hot
Popp says Hershey items with neon colors have caused the park’s retail pulse to race as of late, but he’s always on the lookout to see what the next big thing will be. He and his colleagues will hit three or four big gift shows a year as well as some of the smaller ones in the area. Popp also will talk to other people in the business to see what they’re doing.

Lattimore says networking can make a huge difference when it comes to seeing what kind of souvenirs guests might want to buy.

“We’re all in this together, and we’re all working for the common good of the profitability of our attractions,” he says. “Give them a call. Know their e-mail address. We should be able to depend on each other. We all benefit from that camaraderie.”

Lattimore says standing on the “front lines” and working the gift shop cash register can be very helpful as well.

“I hear what they’re saying, and I know what they’re buying. I can see what their likes and dislikes are,” he says. “As far as being a retailer or buyer, I can’t remove myself from the actual operation of the business.”

Having your own kids around can’t hurt either. Seresky says he closely watches what his teenager and two preteens show interest in on the trips to the mall.

Working with Your Clients
Seresky knows he has to stay on top of the souvenir trends, as Nanco has many heavy-duty clients, including the Anheuser-Busch parks, Six Flags, and Paramount Parks. “It’s more the exception than the rule that we don’t sell to somebody,” he says.

Nanco works with a variety of items, from glass and ceramics to key chains, magnets, stationery, and toys. “A lot of customers lean on us to take their concept, their logo and incorporate it in one of the design concepts we’ve come up with. Once the order is written, that’s just the beginning.”

After Nanco creates the design, it goes to the customer for approval. Then, it travels overseas where a sample is created. The client sees it again to give the OK and finally, they can start full production.

Seresky says it can be a big operation. “We have a department that all they do is tracking of samples and delivery.”

Magnet World also has become accustomed to clinging to the needs of its clients. The Orlando, Fla., company sells millions of magnets a year to the likes of Disney, Universal Studios, and Knoebels Amusement Park in Elysburg, Pa. “We’re a small company, but we have some pretty decent accounts with those folks,” says Magnet World owner Bruce Shirck.

The company primarily produces magnets in three different mediums: photo metal, which utilizes images from the park; plastiflex, a 3-D PVC magnet that’s used to create the park characters; and the popular injection molded—a flexible 2-D magnet.

“It’s the magnet that’s been around since the beginning of time,” he jokes about the latter of three. (This is where you’ll find the aforementioned refrigerator classic “My friends went to Florida…)

Magnet World deals in varying degrees with its amusement park customers, which make up about 20 to 25 percent of its overall business. For Knoebels, the company’s artists took a variety of the park’s icons and assembled various designed based on them.

With Disney, though, Magnet World doesn’t work on a lot of the composition. “They typically do their own stuff and we just produce it for them,” Shirck says.

Why Do They Buy?
Magnet buyers and souvenir seekers usually fit into two main categories. Some people purchase items just for the sake of collecting. “It used to be the hot collectables were spoons and thimbles,” Seresky says. “Now, people collect shot glasses, coffee mugs, and snow globes.”

Others want to capture a special moment in time. “It’s all about memories, and our philosophy is we want to create memories worth repeating.” Reed says. “It all links back to the good old souvenir.”

As for the demographics of the souvenir purchasers, that’s harder to define. They seem to vary between parks and the particular item itself.

Zaid says teenagers and young kids buy most of his light-up novelties at amusement parks. However, the older set is the more frequent magnet customer, according to Shirck.

At Chimney Rock Park, where roughly 35 to 40 percent of its overall revenue comes from retail/souvenir purchases, these hot mementoes cross all age groups, Lattimore says.

“That’s the reason why we don’t just carry one mug. You have to cater to the particular individuals and what their needs and likes are. You may have a funkier look to your name, theme, attraction, or icon for younger people,” he says. Older folks generally enjoy more traditional things, and they might be looking for more educational items to share with their children or grandkids.

He added that the souvenir industry is looking to go more high tech. Gift shop finds don’t need to be just campy; they can be functional, educational, and transcend the generation gaps.

Seresky says everyone wins with souvenirs’ mass appeal. “It’s a good thing for the merchant, and for us.”