Promovarea turismului la obârșie pentru o revitalizare locală durabilă

Promotion of roots tourism for sustainable local revitalisation
(Own-initiative opinion)
COR-2024-01545 – NAT-VII/043
162nd Plenary Session – October 2024
Rapporteur: Giuseppe VARACALLI (IT/RENEW)
DG GROW – Commissioner TZITZIKOSTAS
European Commission position on points of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) opinion considered as essential
The Commission welcomes the Committee of the Regions’ (CoR’s) opinion and shares its views that roots tourism, targeting diaspora and exploring ancestral or cultural heritage, can be an opportunity for local communities. It can boost their economies and jobs, creating innovative tourism products, reviving infrastructure and creating links with local residents, in particular in small towns, remote areas or areas in decline, when lacking other alternatives to develop a sustainable tourism offer.
While not specifically distinguishing roots tourism , the Commission supports all types of sustainable, innovative, and inclusive tourism that brings benefits to local communities. Roots tourism can be considered socially and environmentally sustainable, since it adds value to the cultural and historic heritage, creates strong links with members of community, promotes tailored routes across seasons and usually beyond tourism hotspots to less known areas, encouraging longer stays and returns. Conscious integration of returning expats within communities of origin can bring innovation and thus regenerate these communities. Roots tourism is closely connected to other policies, such as culture and heritage, cohesion policy, rural development, return migration and demographic challenges, employment, and skills. The Commission works in synergy with these policies when supporting sustainable tourism ecosystem at large.
The Commission would welcome more concrete examples of roots tourism across EU destinations, to facilitate the exchange of good practices and peer learning among interested destinations. It would also welcome innovative and smart approaches, such as developing digital access to genealogical records and cultural heritage, reaching out to the expats and incentivising them to discover their origins and to travel, involving community residents and enabling them with necessary knowledge and skills to welcome and integrate visitors returning to their community of origin.
Replies to concrete recommendations
The Commission implements comprehensive and targeted support for sustainable tourism destinations and businesses under the Transition pathway for tourism and the European Agenda for Tourism 2030, aiming at green and digital transition and a resilient tourism ecosystem, including promotion of tourism that benefits local communities. Furthermore, the pilot project supporting sustainable EU tourism destinations maps key challenges and solutions of tourism destinations, providing peer-to-peer learning opportunities. The Commission also promotes sustainable tourism destinations in the EU through the European Travel Commission and European Green Pioneer of Smart Tourism competition for smaller destinations. All these initiatives do not exclude roots tourism along other types of sustainable tourism (opinion ref. points 9.,13.).
The Commission promotes the use of trains to young people as greener means of transports. With DiscoverEU , an Erasmus+ action, over 319 000 young Europeans explored Europe by rail in the last five years. In the post-travel survey, more than 90% of DiscoverEU participants expressed a desire to continue rail travel across Europe in the future. This demonstrates the programme's success in promoting greener transportation alternatives. (opinion ref. point 9., 17.).
Cohesion policy is supporting Member States’ and regions’ efforts to enhance the role of sustainable tourism as a driver for socio-economic and territorial development. In 2021-2027, Member States and regions have allocated EUR 4.2 billion under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) across Cohesion Policy programmes to targeted measures in all types of regions.
National Recovery and Resilience Programmes (NRRP) also support sustainable tourism in several Member States, and roots tourism is specifically supported under the Italian NRRP, as noted in the opinion. Member States, regions and local authorities can choose to support under the EU or national budget the types of sustainable tourism that they consider most adequate in their circumstances. (opinion ref. points 2., 3., 18., 31.)
The Commission supports reskilling and upskilling of tourism enterprises, including at regional and local level, through the large-scale partnership for tourism under the EU Pact for skills, which promotes tourism jobs and skills, aiming to upskill 10% of the tourism workforce each year. The Commission also aims to attract youth employment through a targeted communications campaign on tourism jobs and skills. (opinion ref. points 6., 16., 21., 29.)
The Commission supports young people involvement in the preservation and promotion of local cultural heritage through numerous initiatives, such as the European Heritage Days , a joint initiative with the Council of Europe, promoting local cultural heritage by engaging young people through activities such as the Young European Heritage Makers annual competition. Then, the European Heritage Label involves young people in educational and tourism initiatives in awarded sites, raising awareness of Europe’s shared heritage. Additionally, Creative Europe co-funds the European Heritage Youth Ambassadors Programme . It connects students, young professionals and European heritage organisations for taking youth-led initiatives related to heritage. Finally, through the European Solidarity Corps and the Youth strand of Erasmus+ Youth, the Commission supports numerous projects involving young people in the protection, restoration and promotion of the local cultural heritage. (opinion ref. point 16.)
The Commission highlights the importance of offering young people in rural areas meaningful education and employment opportunities, including job opportunities for young women. Interesting initiatives are already being implemented in some Member States. For example, in Spain, the Recovery and Resilience Plan’s C23.I2 empowers women in rural areas by promoting entrepreneurship and fostering sustainable employment opportunities with training actions. As outlined in the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy, the Commission is committed to develop further intermodality in order to make transport more sustainable and better connect urban areas and regions across the EU. By the end of 2025, the Commission will launch an initiative to facilitate multimodal ticketing, with the Single Digital Booking and Ticketing Regulation, complemented by the Multimodal Digital Mobility Service initiative. This will help Europeans seamlessly find offers combining different modes or different operators for their whole trip. It will help them adopt sustainable transport modes when travelling, in particular rail options, therefore supporting a green shift for tourism throughout the EU. (opinion ref. points 10., 17.)
On cultural tourism and support to cultural heritage, the Commission published the report ‘Sustainable cultural tourism’ in 2019. It recommends more participative practices for development, and support to local communities by consultation, engagement and incentivisation. The Commission also published the report ‘Participatory governance of cultural heritage’ in 2018. It builds on the 2015 mapping study on Member States practices in this field . They highlight the need for enhancing participatory governance through organisational change, more independent initiatives and stakeholders empowerment. (opinion ref. points 8. and 23.)
On the challenges related to cultural access and participation, the Commission has been working closely with the Member States. They have adopted Council Conclusions on improving access to culture under the Hungarian Presidency (Education, Youth, Culture and Sort Council on 26 November 2024). In addition, Creative Europe aims to make culture more accessible across Europe. It includes cross-cutting priorities on inclusion, diversity, and gender equality. An example of its impact is the Europe Beyond Access project , the largest transnational Arts & Disability initiative breaking down barriers for artists and audiences with disabilities across Europe (opinion ref. point 30.).
The Commission welcomes concrete initiatives proposed by the opinion, such as creating a network of capital regions to promote vital roots tourism, connecting European capitals with their respective regions; communication and promotion campaigns in markets considered to be potential sources of roots tourism to Europe, although they are best initiated by concerned destinations. The Commission is ready to support them by providing visibility at EU level and a forum for dialogue and exchange of good practices (opinion ref. points 27., 34.).