The destinations available may be infinitely more varied than 100 years ago, but the tourist experience has become less adventurous and more controlled and hermetically sealed

In the big business of tourist souvenirs, fashions come and go. In 1903 the Glasgow Evening News worried that “in 10 years Europe will be buried beneath picture postcards”, but nowadays postcards are in steep decline. Who would sit down to write a card when you can post your continental breakfast on social media in a couple of seconds? Who buys a novelty paperweight, a cuckoo clock or an alpenstock? There must be some vast repository of kitsch souvenirs doomed to oblivion by fad and fashions.

Even more surprising, however, are the knick-knacks whose popularity has endured. The Eiffel Tower, for example, has only just been knocked off its slot at the top of France’s best-selling souvenir charts – by a felt beret.

But my all-time favourite souvenir is the snow globe, surely one of the most enchanting flights of fancy to have been imagined. When I was researching the history of popular tourism I was surprised to find that almost nothing has been written about snow globes. These little glass balls that, when shaken, send a blizzard of glittery semolina snowflakes over a miniature landscape have a magic, slightly melancholy, all their own.