The next time your local politicians suggest cutting back genealogy services at the local library or state library, tell them "you are only hurting local businesses." Then show them this article.
"Genealogical tourism provides an irreplaceable dimension of material reality that's missing from our postmodern society," according to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recreation, sport and tourism professor Carla Santos.
Traveling to the old church where one's great grandparents used to worship in rural Ireland, or buying a loaf of bread from a tiny grocery store in the village where one's grandmother was from in Greece create a critical space to imagine and feel life as a form of continuation, says co-author and U. of I. graduate student Grace Yan.
The study, published in a recent issue of the Journal of Travel Research, also asserts that the popularity of genealogical tourism is due to living in a world where mediated, inauthentic experiences have become such an ingrained part of everyday life that we're almost unaware of it.
"Genealogical tourism capitalizes on this by allowing individuals to experience the sensuous charms of antiquity, and provides a way of experiencing something eternal and authentic that transcends the present," Santos said.
You can read more at http://www.physorg.com/news186936112.html.
