Slovenia to reap rewards of successful new community tourism initiative

Valere Tjolle, Marija Lah and Mayor Andrej Cas marking out the magic triangle

Four new beneficial projects emerged from a special tourism workshop.

From next week local tourism groups will work on marketing new projects designed to benefit local people and maximise Slovenia’s Misilnja Valley’s tourism opportunity.

The projects were visualised and created by local tourism stakeholders at an intensive two day workshop jointly supported by Slovenj Gradj and Mislinja municipalities in the alpine Koroska area of  Slovenia.

Shortly, local residents will benefit from more tourists coming to sky dive at the Slovenj Gradj sport airport and to enjoy great local hospitality and the natural world on special farm and forest stays. Tourists will also be able to experience health-giving relaxation in Mislinja valley’s magic triangle and to try specially-branded Pohorje holidays and locally-produced goods.

Four local groups created at an intensive tourism workshop visualized the projects and are now putting them into action.

The initiative was designed by TotemTourism  to create a framework:

• To stimulate cooperation amongst local tourism stakeholders, to create a destination vision, increase commitment and overcome key issues facing the destination and maximise its tourism potential
• To increase the length of the Koroska tourism season
• To enhance environmental stewardship of local people and visitors
• To maximise the value of the local tourism product to the Koroska community
• To demonstrate the opportunities that tourism can provide that are commensurate with local values and sensibilities
• To increase the employment opportunities for local people
• To create an economically profitable inbound sustainable tourism initiative with environmental, social and cultural benefits – and to assess and report these benefits clearly.
• To enable local stakeholders to create, implement and manage a co-operative local project that addresses and fulfils the some of the needs of the local community through tourism.
• To increase exposure and publicity of Koroska

A 59-page workbook and a workshop were specifically created by TotemTourism for this initiative and to support the learning and empowerment process of all the 29 workshop attendees from local tourism-related activities.

Said Marija Lah of Spotur:  "I’m very pleased that our tourism stakeholders co-operated with each other so enthusiastically and positively. The process has got off to a great start and we are looking forward to the extra benefits from increased and sustainable tourism."

Said Valere Tjolle Principal of TotemTourism who ran the workshop: "I’m extremely impressed with both the tourism offer and the total commitment of everybody involved. Slovenj Gradec and Misilnja have a sensational and unique tourism opportunity and I’m looking forward to helping the workshop participants bring their projects into life in the near future."

This project is part of the Integrated Tourism Development Initiative

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