International travel marketing
Ancestral Travel:
Ripe for Development
Article by
Thomas E. Nocera, M.A.
Today a windfall opportunity exists for increasing tourism from North America to the EU and Eastern Europe. This is an overview that should be helpful to those who market international travel. The best way to understand the vastness of opportunity is to examine the specific motivations involved in Ancestral Travel. It's a given that people take journeys to satisfy one or more of their personal needs. It's accepted as "human nature" that people tend to behave in ways that they expect to result in a sense of happiness or pleasure. When it comes to world travel some of the most common motivators include: to investigate (or exploit) business opportunities; or to experience a new culture, or cultural phenomena - travel for the expected benefit of education; or for the stimulation found in exploring a new setting. A world traveler may also be seeking to add some new countries to his, or her, "list of places" visited – or, seeking a diversion or escape. Some people travel for the pleasure of the thrill of an anticipated adventure. Some go in anticipation of purely carnal pleasures. Some world travel it is made necessary by the very nature of a livelihood - travel segment that goes back to the times of the spice traders. Others go because they have the means and simply enjoy a vagabond lifestyle. Some travel as a necessity to develop their hobbies. Many journey to distant places to collect or trade things, or to take photographs, or to visit distant museums, or to tour art galleries, or to experience all forms of live performances from street parades, to theatre, to concerts.Others will travel in search of love, or in a search for better health. Some are on a quest for the perfect wave, the perfect meal, or the perfect vista. It is in these latter categories: the collectors; the searchers; and those seeking cultural enrichment that a great opportunity awaits for those who decide the motivational appeals of the advertising to influence world travelers.Ancestral travel is a world travel marketing opportunity dealing with those who are searching for clues to their family identity and cultural heritage. They go about this as collectors and compilers of data about their forebears. They are searching for new information about those whose genes they carry. And, they will travel great distances to visit the known locations of their family homelands for the opportunity to add to their self knowledge. Many do this in order to contribute to (or to create) a legacy of understanding, which they will want to pass along to their children and grandchildren - and beyond to the generations yet to come.I have resisted the temptation to label this market segment “roots travel”. It is to simplify its translation. This market segment is better termed “Ancestral Travel”. It covers those searching for lost or missing pieces of their family’s genealogy puzzle, as well as those wanting greater familial cultural understanding. It is what one of ten travelers to Scotland gave when surveyed several years ago as their reason for visiting. Discovering this potential first, Scotland was the first to act to develop this niche market. They created and funded a separate website as well as a team to encourage, motivate and facilitate inbound ancestral travel. (see: www.ancestralscotland.com ).One recent development that may be viewed as the essential catalyst for the rapid development of this marketing opportunity is happening today at a small database development company located on the Big Island of Hawaii.This company is involved in digitizing the known ancestral history information contained in hundreds of previously published books and creating the world's most complete compilation of family history data. Their work is resulting in an easy to search and fully-sourced kind of map that will help many to discover specific locations of their former ancestral homelands. This database currently spans over 3000 years, and extends back beyond the age of Imperial Rome to biblical times.The Family Forest Project has been underway for over a decade and has been the sole focus of Bruce and Kristine Harrison during that time. This long incubation period is now paying off for them. In 2004 they were catapulted into the news after publicly announcing their findings that President Bush and his challenger in the 2004 election, Senator John Forbes Kerry, are distant cousins. (see: www.familyforest.com )How the Family Forest can apply to the immediate promotion of Ancestral Travel is simple. They are offering access to what can be called virtual roadmaps to the places and time frames of our ancestors’ pasts. Their product is available in two formats. Either as a segment to download as an eBook (this format sells for under $30 and is based on your ancestor’s name.) The Family Forest is also sold as a research tool in its entirety as a complete database on CD ROM for $249 and is available from various online retailers including Ebay.How the global travel industry can utilize this information is not difficult to explain. A travel marketing company can use the database to help recommend specific places in Europe where a North American traveler’s ancestors were known to have resided at some point in time. The outbound travel professionals will work with ancestral travel savvy inbound tour operators throughout the EU and Eastern Europe to coordinate customized travel arrangements. They will network with reputable, local genealogy professionals and those who will serve as interpreters and document researchers/translators. The Internet serves as the key tool to coordinate everything and to plan transnational and transcontinental itineraries. According to Bruce Harrison, “If you are known to have relatives from one country in Europe, it is a certainty that you have relatives in many countries of Europe.” This statement holds true because of the massive human migrations that took place over the centuries. Everyone's ancestors journeyed to new lands for reasons relating primarily to survival, not just for better opportunities. Another reason all countries of Europe provide links to ancestral homelands is because Europe’s royalty would often wed trans-nationally in order to carry out a strategy of forming powerful alliances via familial bonds.With all the information available in the Family Forest database today, the American Express Travel group of companies is among the best positioned to become the dominant player in the upcoming Ancestral Travel arena. Their sister publications have already tested the waters for this segment by recounting the heartwarming stories of successful ancestral journeys. What remains now is for the EU's travel industry leadership to embrace the concept and target it with funding for development via some coordinated cooperative advertising. Economically this is significant on both a macro and micro-economic level. The development of this niche creates for local entrepreneurs with language skills and ancestral marketing knowledge an open door to new tourism related opportunities available right in their own backyards. Meanwhile, we are helping to flesh out a cooperative Internet-based network. (www.ancestraltravel.net) Similar to what Scotland and Great Britain have already done, efforts are underway currently in Romania, as well as in Switzerland, where there is talk of becoming "regional hub locations." What is needed is a reliable network of people to service inbound ancestral travelers most of whom, being from North America, will have limited language skills. So by providing knowledgeable "official document researchers", translators and tour guides who have some specialized genealogy training as well as the necessary local and cultural knowledge, this new segment can flourish. Of the many powerful motivating reasons for Americans to travel overseas, the pursuit of knowledge of ones unique ancestral heritage - as a legacy gift that can be handed down to future progeny, has been one of the least commercially exploited motivators - until now. As the disastrous impact of 9-11 fades behind us, and with the Family Forest database available as a practical and valuable "mapping" tool, this powerful stimulant for encouraging world travel is deemed ripe for rapid, far-flung development. 