Roots tourism is often described as a journey of reconnection with family history, ancestral memory, and a place once left behind. But for many diaspora visitors, the most meaningful part of the experience is not simply seeing monuments or landscapes. It is finding family names, tracing old homes, understanding local traditions, and hearing how a community has changed over time. In many destinations, the people best placed to support this search are local volunteers who hold the stories, records, and lived knowledge visitors are hoping to find.

These volunteers may be local historians, archive keepers, retired teachers, genealogy enthusiasts, or other residents with a deep understanding of community history. What they offer is not a standard tourism service, but something much more personal: oral memory, unofficial knowledge, and social context that rarely appears in formal visitor products. Their involvement can transform a visit from passive observation into a more meaningful encounter with living heritage.

For destinations, this creates a real opportunity. Roots tourism can become more distinctive, more community-based, and more sustainable when local knowledge-holders are involved in thoughtful ways. It can also support slower and longer stays, strengthen links with local crafts and agriculture, and help preserve intangible heritage that might otherwise remain undocumented or undervalued.

At the same time, this approach comes with challenges. Volunteers may have rich knowledge but limited experience in guiding visitors, handling emotional expectations, or navigating sensitive family histories. Some may feel uncomfortable speaking publicly, responding to conflicting narratives, or working with incomplete records. There is also a risk that communities may feel pressure to simplify their history, stage traditions, or make private memory serve outside demand.

That is why support and coordination matter. Volunteers should not be treated as unpaid performers or informal substitutes for professional destination management. Within a destination, the lead should normally come from a trusted local coordinating body, such as the municipality, destination management organisation, or a local development partnership, working closely with community knowledge-holders and tourism actors. This helps ensure that roots tourism develops in a way that is organised, respectful, and aligned with local priorities.

Training also has an important role, but it should not turn volunteers into scripted interpreters. The aim should be to strengthen confidence and practical skills while preserving each person's authentic voice. Useful areas include cultural sensitivity, genealogical research methods, storytelling, sustainable tourism principles, and basic guidance on working with parish records, land registers, oral histories, and family narratives.

Equally important is community participation in deciding how local heritage is presented. When residents have a real voice, roots tourism is less likely to drift into commodification or one-dimensional storytelling. It becomes easier to protect boundaries, respect what should remain private, and ensure that benefits are shared more fairly across the community.

For destinations just starting out, the first steps can be simple and low-cost. They can begin by identifying who holds local knowledge, connecting them with tourism actors, documenting stories and place-based memory, and creating opportunities for intergenerational learning. In this way, local historians and volunteers are not added at the end of tourism planning; they become part of its foundation.

This is also where the Erasmus+ project Foster Competencies on Roots Tourism in VET Schools to Promote Sustainable Tourism and Destinations in Europe can make a useful contribution: by supporting training and capacity-building for future roots tourism actors. Linked initiatives around roots tourism and vocational education are already being highlighted as part of ECOCLUB's and partner efforts in this field.

Roots tourism works best when it is not reduced to ancestry as a product. It works when communities shape the process, when local voices are respected, and when visitors are welcomed into living heritage with care. In that context, volunteers and local historians do more than support the visitor experience: they help give it depth, credibility, and meaning.