Roots Tourism saves the beauty and the economy of small villages, from where emigration started, with a heritage in Italy of as many as 5,529 municipalities under 5,000 inhabitants, accounting for 70% of the total number of Italian municipalities but home to only 16.5% of the national population and accounting for 54% of the entire Italian surface area. This is what emerges from Coldiretti’s analysis at the presentation of the project "Roots Tourism: an integrated strategy for the recovery of the tourism sector in post-COVID-19 Italy". 92% of Italy's typical agri-food products originate in small Italian villages with fewer than five thousand inhabitants, which is a heritage of sustainable and zero-kilometer food and wine preserved over time by agricultural enterprises with a daily commitment to ensure the preservation of historical crops, the protection of the territory from hydrogeological instability and the maintenance of popular traditions. It is a lever for Roots Tourism that is also important to fight depopulation in municipalities with less than 5,000 inhabitants where more than one in eight (13%) is over 75 years old; here the elderly population represent a fundamental presence to pass on traditions, transmit knowledge and defend the historical, environmental and cultural value of the territories.