Cans of 'fresh air' from Lake Como on sale to tourists in Italy
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For tourists returning from vacation, a camera roll full of photos and a suitcase bursting with souvenirs are usually the closest they can come to bringing a piece of their holiday destination home with them.
For tourists returning from vacation, a camera roll full of photos and a suitcase bursting with souvenirs are usually the closest they can come to bringing a piece of their holiday destination home with them.
But now, communications company ItalyComunica says it has bottled the very air of Italy’s picturesque Lake Como and is selling these cans for €9.90 (C$15) apiece.
Each can is said to contain 400 milliliters of “100% authentic air” collected from Lake Como, a destination that has become increasingly popular with tourists in recent years thanks to its beauty and its celebrity associations – George and Amal Clooney own a house nearby, while movies including “Casino Royale” and “House of Gucci” were filmed there.
More than 5.6 million people visited Lake Como in 2023, and the numbers are consistently growing, according to the Lombardy tourism bureau.
In an attempt to capitalize on the visitor numbers, marketing specialist Davide Abagnale originally created an e-commerce site selling Lake Como posters, after seeing so many posters of San Francisco and Los Angeles on his honeymoon in 2022.
His latest initiative, selling canned air, aims to “create a souvenir that could be easily transported in a suitcase for tourists” and “something original, fun and even provocative,” a spokesperson for ItalyComunica told CNN on Monday.
“It’s not a product, it’s a tangible memory that you carry in your heart,” Abagnale told CNN, adding that once tourists are home and have opened the can, they can repurpose it as a souvenir pen holder.
