Have you ever dreamt of being in the places where your ancestors grew up? The Guida alle Radici Italiane (‘Guide to Italian Roots’) proposes an alternative tourism with different experiences: to live through the culture that shaped part of your life.
The idea is to make a research on genealogy and on your family documents to determine which places they lived in, in order to design a personalised itinerary to retrace the life of your ancestors. An opportunity to discover the history of your family with your family.
“The Guide to Italian Roots: a journey on the tracks of your ancestors” as a guidebook series has been made possible thanks to the support of the Directorate General of Italians Abroad of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
The guidebook is addressed to the new generations of the six million Italians living abroad and to the nearly 60-80 million people of Italian descent who are scattered across the world: an audience that is very different from the traditional readership of Italian tourist guidebooks.
Descendants of Italian migrants are an exceptional group of people, a heritage that is now given a chance to discover the places they come from – their roots, along with the origin of their families and their stories.
“Roots tourists” travel to their towns of origin with a view to getting to know the land where their ancestors came from, its culture and traditions so to rekindle a bond with it and discover they have a second home.
They represent a tourist segment which has been showing a substantial growth in the last ten years and that can become a major source of sustainable development for Italian small towns and hamlets, which often are little known but that have a great economic potential for tourism.
“It is an important initiative for Italians abroad but also and primarily for Italy and it has the full support of this Government,” said the former Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ricardo Merlo, at the launch of the first volume.
“For an Italian living abroad or for a citizen of Italian descent, coming to Italy is a completely different experience characterised by feeling and identity: it is a special journey, an unconventional form of tourism that is extremely meaningful from the point of view of nature and business. What Italy spends on Italians abroad is not an expenditure but an investment that Italy should capitalise on,” Undersecretary Merlo added.
The ’Associazione RAIZ italiana’, accepted the invitation by the Directorate General for Italian Citizens Abroad and Migration Policies to write and publish the first volume of the guidebook series, which offers a set of sentimental itineraries geared to let roots tourists discover historical, cultural, social and wine and food traditions of four Italian Regions that have a significant history with regards to migration: Abruzzo, Basilicata, Emilia Romagna and Apulia.
This volume was a first step towards a comprehensive coverage of all Italian Regions and Autonomous Provinces. Download the First Volume of the guide in multiple languages: English, Spanish,Portuguese, French.
The second volume of the “Guide to the Italian roots was launched more recently. The second volume continues the journey in search of roots in the Italian regions (Calabria, Lombardy, Molise and Sicily, already started in the first volume published in September 2019 and dedicated to the Abruzzo, Basilicata, Emilia Romagna and Puglia regions.
The “tourism of the roots” is a tourist segment with great potential, which can relaunch small villages, once places of belonging and abandonment, which today become destinations of welcome and rediscovery, through “emotional” paths full of memories but also of tastes, landscapes, rural and artisanal activities.
The audience of readers is made up of about 60-80 million Italians and Italo-descendants who live in the world. This public represents for Italy an exceptional heritage to be preserved, which is offered the opportunity to discover the places of roots and family memory.
The pandemic has in fact increased nostalgia for the places from which the ancestors of Italian natives left decades ago and has strengthened the sense of belonging to Italy. Among the pages of this volume, their story and that of migrant Italy are also told, which today has the privilege of having large communities in the world that love it and promote it insofar as they feel part of it.
This volume was a first step towards hopefully a comprehensive coverage of all Italian Regions and Autonomous Provinces. Download the Second Volume of the guide in multiple languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese.
You can find more about the guide at: www.raizitaliana.it. (Raiz Italia/MAECI)
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