Five Countries Helping You Reconnect You with Your Roots

As DNA ancestry testing kits like Ancestry and 23&Me have become more accessible and affordable, “heritage tourism”, or travel based on reconnecting people with their places of origin, has become more popular than ever. With tests offering percentage-based estimates of where your DNA might hail from, those who don’t have direct knowledge of their genealogy can explore the places where their families may have originated. What’s more, the rise of roots travel is being looked at as a sustainable alternative to overtourism. The European Union in particular, which sees the highest rates of tourism (and subsequently overtourism) in the world, has been calling for its member states to promote roots tourism, which often can lead visitors to seek out smaller villages and under-touristed regions, which in turn boost local economic development. Travel agencies specialising in heritage trips and tours have been growing in popularity, too. In 2021, Kensington Tours partnered with Ancestry.com to create a series of heritage journeys to places like Italy, Germany, Japan and Ghana in partnership with a professional genealogist to help provide a more comprehensive analysis of the sites that might hold the most history and meaning for a family origin journey.

Discover how Trevolution Group highlights roots travel as a key driver of India’s tourism growth—read the full article here