Investments and entrepreneurial environment

Supporting small tourism businesses to foster entrepreneurship and enhance the quality of the tourism offer. Supporting small businesses is focused on digital transformation.

• Increase participation in UNWTO Start-up Competitions, the world’s largest start-up competitions in tourism.
• Foster participation in the UNWTO Digital Futures programme, that seeks to accelerate economic recovery of the tourism sector by scaling up innovative SMEs, unleashing digital technologies to create jobs and enhance future resilience in the linkages of the tourism value chain post COVID-19.
• Organization of Masterclasses focused on digital skills in collaboration with Amadeus, (better data analysis for better decision-making), Google and other global partners.

Public infrastructure and heritage for the tourism environment

Supporting the restructuring and renovation of tourism infrastructure based on high-quality and innovative tourism products that will have a positive impact on the occupancy of accommodation capacities and will increase guest’s level of daily spending.

• Providing support through different UNWTO programmes and the organization of an investment forum in Slovenia with the support of UNWTO.
• UNWTO can assist Slovenia in developing subnational regional master plans . 
• UNWTO has partnered with the fDi intelligence from the Financial Times to develop a joint publication on Tourism Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) analysing data on Greenfield investments trends and making it available to Member States at no cost.

Human resources to increase added value

UNWTO aims to scale-up education for supporting added value jobs worldwide.

• Training and education:
  • UNWTO Tourism Online Academy: scholarships granted to member states annually.
  • UNWTO TedQual: Quality Assurance for Tourism Education, Training and Research Programmes.
  • UNWTO Students’ League: initiative that supports country's young people in their preparation and engagement to help shape a better world.
  • UNWTO international internship programme
• Youth Empowerment:
  • Global Youth Tourism Summit 2022: Slovenia was represented by 2 participants.

Sustainability and Green Scheme of Slovenian Tourism

Green, sustainable, and responsible tourism is the pillar of Slovenian tourism development. The tourism development policy focuses on sustainable growth and on closing the gap between tourist green potential and its economic turnover, as well as the gap between the ‘green’ promise and the actual quality of tourist experience.

• Engaging in different initiatives of the One Planet Sustainable Tourism Programme:
  • Global Tourism Plastics Initiative unites the tourism sector behind a common vision to address the root causes of plastic pollution. It enables businesses, governments, and other tourism stakeholders to lead by example in the shift towards a circular economy of plastics.
  • Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism aims to raise the climate ambition of tourism stakeholders and secure strong actions to support the global commitment to have emissions by 2030 and reach Net Zero as soon as possible before 2050.
• Possible establishment of an observatory for the UNWTO International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories, monitoring sustainable tourism development at destination level.
• Ongoing process of development of a new standard in tourism, materialized in the Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism (MST), which takes into consideration the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of tourism.

Destination management & tourism products

• UNWTO Rural Tourism Development Programme - Best Tourism Villages by UNWTO: In 2021, Solčava and Radovljica received the label, followed by Bohinj in 2022.
• Slovenia serves as an example of good practices in the publication "Sustainable Development of Mountain Tourism", prepared by the Mountain Partnership and the UNWTO, that was released on the International Mountain Day in 2021.

Slovenian Tourism Strategy 2022 – 2028

Strategic Goals

• to increase quality and value and ensure a year-round tourism offering;
• to increase the satisfaction of locals, tourism employees and guests;
• to position tourism as a generator of value and sustainable development;
• to decarbonise and balance Slovenian tourism and
• to ensure a competent and efficient management structure.

To achieve the strategic goals, the strategy identifies seven policies with specific measures:

• Policy 1: investments and the business environment,
• Policy 2: public/common infrastructure and heritage for creating a tourist-friendly environment in Slovenia,
• Policy 3: human resources for higher added value,
• Policy 4: sustainability and the green scheme of Slovenian tourism,
• Policy 5: accessibility and sustainable mobility,
• Policy 6: destination management and tourism connectivity,
• Policy 7: products and marketing.

Source: Republic of Slovenia Gov.si