Prestigious international awards and decorations, EUR 114,500 of granted funds, 96 realised idea deposits and projects, eight years of operation of the Bank of Tourism Potentials of Slovenia, a Tourism Potentials Laboratory that has expanded beyond the borders of Slovenia, etc.
The promotion of innovation in tourism is one of the key orientations of the Slovenian Tourism Development Strategy. When we speak of the development of innovation in tourism, we speak of all levels and areas (product, service, destination, organisation, process, technology, marketing communications, cooperation, etc.).
The system for the promotion of innovation in tourism at the national level focuses on the recognition and rewarding of innovation with the Sower (sejalec) award, the development of the Bank of Tourism Potentials of Slovenia (BTPS) and the Snovalec award for the realisation of the most innovative tourism ideas. Over time, accompanying mechanisms developed such as the BTPS challenge, the Student Snovalec reward, the BTPS blog and the Innovative Slovenian Tourism column. By successfully competing in the Italy-Slovenia Cross-border Cooperation Programme, BTPS is expanding to international markets under the T-lab brand.
10th Anniversary of the Sower Award
The Sower award for creative and innovative tourism achievements was first announced in 2004. It rewards innovations in tourism that contribute to the greater recognisability of the tourism offer in Slovenia. For award purposes, an innovation is defined as an innovation or improvement that features quality planning and successful introduction, an element of unusualness, originality of the applicant, systematic business thinking and the promotion of Slovenian tourism.
The first Golden Sower in 2004 was the Ljubljana-based Celica Hostel, which was followed by the Terme Čatež Thermal Spa Riviera and the Wandering with Bicycles in Panonske Terme (2005), the Kekec Homestead and the Sloveniabike.com portal (2006), the Koper Passenger Port (2007), the Krvavec Eskimo Village (2008), the Taste Slovenia culinary centre (2009), the Bohinj Park EKO hotel (2010) and the Gastronomic Treasures of Istria (2011). In 2012, the Sower award was bestowed on two products: the VitaGen programme, Šmarješke Toplice Thermal Spa – using a genetic image to acquire knowledge for health - and GoOpti, low-cost road transport. The awarded innovations were mostly product innovations, while the Koper Passenger Port was a new form of process organisation in addition to being a new product. In 2013, the award will be bestowed for the tenth consecutive year.
The Bank of Tourism Potentials of Slovenia
The Bank of Tourism Potentials of Slovenia project entered the Slovenian tourism space in December of 2006 and has since encouraged the development of innovative thinking and approaches in Slovenian tourism. The priority task of the project is the promotion of the supervised flow of information on promising tourism ideas with the aim of bringing together the right people and the right resources for the realisation of the said ideas. The holder of the project is the SPIRIT Slovenia Public Agency that works with the Tourism and Internationalisation Directorate at the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology and the Turistica Faculty of Tourism Studies from Portorož.
BTPS can be reached via the website www.btps.si that is part of the business pages of the Spirit Slovenia Public Agency. The portal is available in two languages, i.e. Slovenian and English. In May of 2013, BTPS had over 1,350 registered users who published 389 idea deposits, 130 energy deposits, 141 knowledge deposits and 415 news items relating to innovation in tourism. The portal recorded more than 180,000 visits, 580,000 viewed pages, and almost 1,500 Facebook friends. There were 96 realised idea deposits and tourism projects.
And which are the most widely read deposits? As at 6 May 2013, the most visited deposit in the BTPS was the winner of the Sower 2009 award – new energy for Slovenian tourism of 19 May 2009, in which the Slovenian tourism organisation in cooperation with MG put a reward fund of EUR 40,000 gross of non-refundable funds up for grabs for the realisation of the most promising tourism ideas. The deposit registered 3,765 views. The second deposit in terms of visits was the Tender deposit: contributing an idea for a chance to win free caravan rental with 2,376 views, while third place
was taken by the World Tourism Organisation with 2,291 views. Of the first ten deposits in terms of visits, three are idea deposits, five are energy deposits and two are news items.
Since the start of operations, the Bank of Tourism Potentials of Slovenia has sent an invitation to apply for the Sower award seven times (an additional two invitations were sent prior to the establishment of the BTPS), while it has sent an invitation for the Snovalec reward three times, and once for the Student Snovalec reward. It announced three international, one bilateral and six national BTPS challenges, and hosted two young entrepreneurs and four blog authors. By the end of April 2013, BTPS had 1,075 deposits published. Over the years, a total of over 120,000 visitors visited the Bank and together they generated well over 180,000 visits.
Over the years, BTPS used the Snovalec mechanism to award EUR 114,500 gross worth of funds, of which EUR 61,600 were paid out by 31 May 2012 and helped realise six ideas. Koper Municipality used the BTPS mechanism in 2009 and 2010 for the development of the most promising tourism products, to which it allocated EUR 40,000 gross worth of funds to help realise six ideas. Ljubljana Municipality allocated EUR 835 for the co-financing of one deposit. Assistance was provided in the form of energy deposits by Business Angels, Hypo bank and certain other individual service providers.
In the long-term, the BTPS wishes (1) to become the central information hub for opportunities in all areas of Slovenian tourism and (2) to contribute to concrete and innovative incentives for tourism providers in the form of a Slovenian tourism incubator.
The Laboratory of Tourism Potentials of the Border Area Regions of Italy and Slovenia: T-lab
Seven years of experience with the BTPS has shown that the new tourism idea applicants are looking for expert support in developing their products in addition to financial incentives. The T-lab project that is co-financed within the scope of the Italy – Slovenia Cross-border Cooperation Operational Programme from the funds of the European Regional Development Fund and national funds provides such support to the users of the www.tourism-lab.eu portal with the help of the incubation of projects and the inclusion of projects into the T-lab Snovalec support scheme. In addition to the substantive upgrading of the BTPS, we are using the T-lab project to expand to the Italian-speaking and geographical area as we also have four Italian partners in addition to the three Slovenian partners.
We have carried our more than 15 different events within the scope of the T-lab project (free-of-charge workshops, debate cycles, experimentations and open days). At Primorska Technology Park, which is a partner of the project, 4 projects were incubated last year, while five agreements are pending signing with the holders of five new projects. The project partner, the Sipro Regional Development Agency, published an invitation in April together with the chamber of commerce of Ferrara, where they invited companies developing new tourism products in the region to compete. The Trieste-based AREA science and technology park has already selected three scholarship recipients who will carry out free-of-charge studies of building energy efficiency or the use of domotics in buildings under the guidance of mentors. They will also provide consulting in relation to the options for obtaining funds for realisation. The tender where Slovenian tourism companies will also be able to apply will be published in June. The T-lab Snovalec invitation to tender is currently open in Slovenia, while a similar invitation is under preparation in Italy. By way of the said invitation, we wish to help realise 25 tourism products in the eligible area. These projects will be provided free-of-charge expert, mentorship and promotional support by Slovenian and Italian tourism experts.
Innovation in tourism is by no means a topic (on a global scale as well) that is frequently on the agenda of politics, tourism service providers and users. Our multiple international award-winning activities confirm that innovation in tourism must not remain a marginal issue and that there are still many interesting opportunities for tourism stakeholders to be found both at home and abroad.