Projects that favor deseasonalization are welcome, from experiential tourism to roots tourism.
Thus Cna Turismo e Commercio applauds the initiatives announced by Minister Antonio Tajani relating to "2024, Year of Italian roots in the world".
In the case of origin tourism, there is also an emotional component that makes tourism not only an economic factor but also a cultural one through the direct involvement of communities of Italians and Italian-descendants around the world.
According to estimates, the audience of potential tourists exceeds 80 million people, in addition to the five million Italian citizens who live permanently outside national borders.
The global rediscovery of roots favors this phenomenon.
Already today, over 13 million visitors to Italy can be included in the "roots tourist" category according to the ENIT classification.
There were 5.8 million in 1997 and 10 million in 2018. From an economic point of view, the value of this form of tourism currently exceeds 18 billion but in reality the economic impact would be much higher.
First of all, the journey leads traditional tourists to discover or rediscover Italian artisan and agri-food excellence, transforming this journey into a life experience.
The roots tourist from traveling to places of family origin is in some cases led to renovate or buy properties or make investments.
Famous is the case of the director Francis Ford Coppola who even opened a luxury hotel in Bernalda, the center of Basilicata where his grandfather Agostino was originally from.
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