UK King’s good for souvenir business

6th May is coronation day in the UK. This religious service is for the new king: Charles III. Gift shops are selling souvenirs to tourists.

Julie Whitehead's from Australia. She's buying a souvenir for her mum.

Julie Whitehead: "But my mother is a fanatic royalist. So, she's got a glass cabinet with all of these royal things, like her other daughters have come over here and purchased all this memorabilia. And so, I'm gonna pick up the King Charles ones for her because her cabinet's full of Queen Elizabeth."

The shops are selling King Charles souvenirs. His face is on bags, mugs, plates and other souvenirs. Some of them aren't cheap.

Ismayil Vadakkethil works in a souvenir shop.

Ismayil Vadakkethil: "It's available in most of the shops around in London now. But we have some exclusives that which we have, so we had to pay some extra to get them in. For example, some of the mugs here, they're made in the UK itself. So, they might pay like £3 extra on the mug, but they don't mind paying it because, because of the quality, and they are made in the UK, so they like to buy for the price we have put on them."

Many shoppers come from Commonwealth countries like Canada. Canadian shops aren't selling these souvenirs. Rebecca's buying one to take home.

Rebecca Grisnich: "Well, I'm from Canada, and while the monarchy is also in Canada, they don't really have any coronation stuff. So."

Some tourists won't be in London for the coronation. Adele Alison will watch it from her home in South Africa. She'll drink tea from her mug.

Adele Alison: "For the coronation, yeah. So, at least when we're back in South Africa on Sunday we can watch it and have some tea."

Tourists usually buy souvenirs. Londoners are buying the coronation souvenirs too. Vadakkethil's surprised.

Ismayil Vadakkethil: "We sell equally like, royal family stuff plus the souvenirs. But recently, I've noticed that it's not just tourists coming in, like people who work next door like in the offices or like people from, the Londoners itself; they come in to the shop just to buy the coronation stuff. So, that, that's a bit of change. Yeah, so we have both tourists and local customers coming in for the coronation."

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