Photo by Manuel Ferrigato
Traveling to discover your own roots and family history is an extraordinary experience that becomes real and accessible with Italea, the platform dedicated to Italians abroad and Italian descendants intending to reconnect with their origins.
Italea is a project dedicated both to those who already know their Italian origins and want to organize a trip to discover and rediscover the places, tradition, customs and culture of their ancestors, and to those who need to identify them, and who will be able to make use of a network of reliable genealogists ready to guide them along this fascinating path in search of their roots.
Italea’s territorial network extends across all Italian regions to inform, welcome, and assist roots travelers, providing comprehensive support throughout the journey and aiding in the organization of a tailor-made trip based on each individual’s specific needs and expectations.
The name “Italea” derives from “talea”, a practice by which a plant is allowed to propagate. By cutting a part of it and replanting it, it can be given new life, making new roots grow. Just as happens with migration, where those who left Italy planted their roots in new lands.
Italea is here to guide travelers in this unique experience of connection with their roots, offering support at every step of the rediscovery journey, and is accessible through the website italea.com.
As part of the Italea project, Italeacard has been developed, which is a virtual card that offers discounts to travellers of Italian origin and involves many partners, including local and national companies. All information is available at www.italeacard.com
Facts and figures about “Roots Tourism”
- “Roots Tourism” is a tourist offer structured through appropriate communication strategies, which combines the supply of goods and services of the tertiary sector (accommodation, food and wine, guided tours) with the knowledge of the family history and culture of origin of Italians living abroad and of descendants of Italian origin who are estimated to be a catchment area of nearly 80 million people.
- In 1997 ENIThad estimated that 8 million travellers visiting Italy fell within the category of “roots tourism” In 2024, once the COVID crisis had been overcome, that number rose to 6.6 million (+13.8%) and is estimated to reach 7.4 million in 2026.
- In 2024 the economic inflow generated by roots tourism amounted to approximately 5 billion euros (+34.4% compared to the previous year).
- The italea.com website has recorded more than 1.9 million visits since its launch in March 2025.
- The italea card brings together more than 760 partners, local producers of excellence and national players (including Ita Airwais, Poste Italiane and major hotel chains such as Best Western and Star hotels) and has more than 13,000 registered travellers. Trenitalia is also associated with the programme, offering discounts on high-speed trains to people registered with AIRE.
- In the three years of the project, more than a thousand events have been organised, involving an estimated 50,000 people, and the regional Italee have received over 10,000 requests for travel or genealogical research.
- Collaboration with Municipalities is central to the Italea programme and has also resulted in the publication of a public notice, thanks to which around 800 Municipalities have been selected to receive a grant with which they have already organised around 750 events aimed at Italians and Italian descendants around the world, with an estimated audience of over one million people. Such initiative, which has not been limited to the mere granting of financial support, has contributed to the aforementioned integration of Municipalities into the Italea network through the provision of specific services and the involvement of various stakeholders in their territories.
- As part of the Italea programme, the Network of Emigration Museums has been created with the aim of promoting these entities, which are of great importance both for Italian descendants and as a sort of historical memory for Italians in Italy.
- In 2024, the year of Italian roots around the world, ITALEA participated in more than 20 events abroad, spread across 19 countries, with an estimated attendance of over 1,500,000 people. Participation in Columbus Day in October 2024, broadcast live by the American broadcaster CBS, was watched by approximately 3 million people across the United States.
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A five-volume series of tourist guides entitled “Guida alle radici italiane. Un viaggio sulle tracce dei tuoi antenati”. (Guide to Italian Roots: A Journey in the Footsteps of Your Ancestors) has been completed. (The guides can be downloaded here below).
The opportunities opened up by the “Roots Tourism”
- Responding to the digital challenge: the “Roots Tourism” takes advantage of innovative channels, since the widespread dissemination of information and the search for documents on family history will pass through websites. Furthermore, administrators of small villages, owners of holiday farms, and families active in the field of accommodation and hospitality can use social networks to inform tourists about their roots.
- Eco-sustainability: the “Roots Tourism” leaves behind the destinations touched by traditional tourist flows, enhancing lesser known and less developed areas of Italy, which can thus bridge their economic growth gap while respecting their rural nature, in an eco-sustainable manner. On the one hand, the enhancement of small towns and the countryside allows the renovation and recovery of disused dwellings and infrastructure and, on the other, it also favours the providers of local services and products (above all, food and wine). This type of tourists are “ambassadors” of the territories that preserve their family history (usually the small villages).
- Incentive for youth employment: the tourist operator specialising in roots travels is a new profile: in order to ensure a high-level tourist offer, an important goal is to promote the training of roots tourist operators, in coordination with the central administrations concerned, academic and research centres, local authorities, economic operators in the tourist sector and associations active in the area. In this way, employment is stimulated, especially youth employment, precisely in the areas affected by progressive depopulation, which are the areas preferred by roots tourism.
The importance of memory: “Gli italiani all’estero, i diari raccontano”
Enhancing the role of memory is related to the “Roots Tourism“. The stories of emigration, sacrifice and success of ancestors are a sound point of reference for Italian descendants in the five continents of the world. Precisely for this reason, the Foreign Ministry’s Directorate General for Italians Abroad and Migration Policies has funded the project “Gli italiani all’estero, i diari raccontano” (Italians Abroad, Diaries Tell Stories), a selection of the most significant parts of the testimonies in the collection catalogued under the topic “emigration” at the National Diary Archive Foundation in Pieve Santo Stefano (AR). It is a selection of 200 life stories chosen from over one thousand in the collection, from which a few pages – chosen from the dozens, sometimes hundreds pages available – have been extrapolated and digitised. In this way, each page has been turned into a story, published in the website https://www.idiariraccontano.org/. The criteria followed in choosing the testimonies to be published concern the historical interest of the individual human trajectories recounted in the documents. Besides the interest in presenting different viewpoints on major historical events, this project is designed to recount the experience common to all emigration stories, which are the main core of the documentary selection together with accounts of travel or temporary work abroad. This project is a rich source of reference for roots tourists, who can also make use of it before embarking on their journey to Italy