When people talk about "Roots Tourism", many think of a niche initiative, something for nostalgics of Calabrian or Venetian villages who want to find their grandfather's house. The reality is different. It is one of the most ambitious programmes that the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has launched in recent years, with numbers that deserve to be known by the Italian community in Switzerland.
Let's look at them together, because they help to understand the scale of the thing.
The potential pool of Roots Tourism is estimated at 80 million people: that is how many people of Italian descent there are in the world according to the Farnesina's surveys. To give an idea, it is one and a half times the current population of Italy.
In 2024 the "roots tourists" who visited Italy numbered 6.6 million, up 13.8 percent on the previous year. Projections for 2026 speak of 7.4 million arrivals. The economic flow generated in 2024 alone was around 5 billion euros, with growth of 34.4 percent on the previous year.
It is not folklore. It is an economic sector in full expansion, which is changing the way Italy tells its story to its children scattered around the world.
The operational heart of the programme is Italea, the online platform accessible at italea.com. It is designed for two types of audience: those who already know their Italian origins and want to organise a trip to the places of their ancestors, and those who know they have "something Italian" in their family history but have no idea where to look.
For the second group, Italea provides a network of professional genealogists who help reconstruct the family tree and locate the municipality or region of origin. For those living in Switzerland with a great-grandfather's Italian surname and zero documents, it is a service worth gold.
Italea's territorial network covers all Italian regions with welcome points dedicated to roots travellers. Since the platform's launch in March 2025 it has recorded over 1.9 million visits and more than 10,000 requests for trips or genealogical research.
Linked to the project is Italeacard, a free virtual card that gives access to discounts and benefits during your trip to Italy. The numbers are already remarkable: over 760 partners, more than 13,000 registered travellers. Partners include hotel chains such as Best Western and Starhotels, Poste Italiane, ITA Airways and, interestingly for those travelling from Zurich, Trenitalia, which offers discounts on high-speed trains to those registered with AIRE.
For an Italian-Swiss planning a trip to Italy, Italeacard is a tool that should be activated before booking anything.
One of the most concrete aspects of the programme is the collaboration with Italian local administrations. Through a public call, around 800 municipalities have been selected to receive contributions aimed at organising events for people of Italian descent around the world. Over the last three years these municipalities have staged around 750 events with an estimated audience of over one million people.
For those who live in Zurich and whose family comes from a small village in the South or the Apennines, this means that their town of origin may have already launched initiatives dedicated to the return of emigrants and their descendants. It is worth checking.
An interesting part of the programme concerns the enhancement of the historical memory of emigration. The Farnesina has financed the project "Italiani all'estero, i diari raccontano", a selection of 200 life stories taken from the "emigration" collection of the National Diary Archive Foundation of Pieve Santo Stefano. The stories are published on the website idiariraccontano.org and are an extraordinary source for anyone who wants to understand where the great Italian migration of the twentieth century came from, the one that also populated Switzerland.
In parallel, the Network of Emigration Museums has been established, bringing together the institutions that preserve the memory of those who left.
The final question is the one that really counts: does all this concern us too, those of us living in Zurich? The answer is yes, in three concrete ways.
First, it concerns your children. The sports event of 14 June 2026 in Rome, which we told you about in another article, is one of the chapters of the programme aimed specifically at the new generations of Italian descent. Applications for the Zurich district are open.
Second, it concerns your trips to Italy. If you are planning a holiday in your family's town of origin, Italeacard gives you access to discounts that can be worth even hundreds of euros on a trip. Registration is free and takes a few minutes at italeacard.com.
Third, it concerns your story. If you are among those who know they have Italian ancestors but have never dug deeper, Italea can help you reconstruct the path and perhaps rediscover a village you have never seen. In some cases it can also be the first step towards procedures for the recognition of Italian citizenship by descent, which remain a chapter of their own but often start precisely with genealogical research.
The Farnesina has invested a lot in this programme. The Italian community of Switzerland, one of the largest and most deeply rooted in Europe, has every right and every reason to take advantage of it.
The Roots Tourism programme is described on the MAECI website at esteri.it/it/servizi-opportunita/italiani-all-estero/turismo-delle-radici. The Italea platform is at italea.com, while the discount card is at italeacard.com. The life stories of Italian emigrants are collected on the website idiariraccontano.org.
For information on the 14 June event and on CONI's activities in Switzerland, the reference is Cirano Tondi, National Delegate of the Italian National Olympic Committee in Switzerland. Info at www.conisvizzera.ch
