Root tourism marketing: a conceptual framework

This paper develops a conceptual framework for root tourism marketing. Drawing on push-pull theory, service-dominant logic, the experience economy, and post-COVID destination-resilience thinking, it explains how diaspora motivations shape value co-creation, experience design, sustainable destination positioning, and health-sensitive tourism marketing. A central contribution is the theoretical alignment between strategic marketing levers and specific diaspora clusters: by categorizing descendants according to genealogical proximity and emotional engagement, the framework provides practitioners with a rigorous tool to move beyond generic promotion. This enables destination management organizations to identify strategies that resonate with diverse visitor profiles, ensuring efficient and culturally sensitive marketing. Digital technologies contribute across the journey — supporting ancestry research, enriching on-site interpretation through AR and VR, and extending post-visit storytelling via user-generated content and AI-enabled communities. Ethical responsibilities and operational barriers are treated as conditioning decision variables.Keywords: roots tourism; diaspora tourism; destination marketing; heritage tourism, emerging technologies.