Deposits::And the 2014 Snovalec Award goes to ...

A total of 43 projects entered the Snovalec competition organised by the Tourism Division of the SPIRIT Slovenia public agency to stimulate creativity and innovation in Slovenian tourism. The expert committee selected 9 finalists, who presented their ideas before the committee. Three ideas stood out from the finalists, which were all very impressive. Their authors have been awarded the title of 2014 Snovalec and each received a grant of EUR 5,000 (gross).

The 2014 Snovalec title holders are:

Garden village Bled (Applicant: Barbara Kokelj s.p.)
Garden Village Bled is an ecologically and innovatively designed tourist complex, built on a site that used to belong to a garden centre. The resort will consist of wooden tree houses, tents on piers, glamping tents, an ecological shop, a unique restaurant, a pond, a charging station for electric cars, and similar. The expert committee believes that the final product will be an example of a comprehensive, high-quality and sustainable tourist product on both the Slovenian and global scale.

Forest Selfness (Applicant: LTO Laufar Cerkno)
With the new product “Forest Selfness”, LTO Laufar Cerkno transfers the elements of selfness, such as physical activity, relaxation and self-healing, to open spaces, to nature, where natural elements and materials predominate. Forest air, natural sound therapy and the colours of nature are just some of them. The product will lead guests along today’s underused forest trails. The expert committee also highlights the importance of the innovative transfer of the concept from indoor premises to forests at a time when forests are becoming all the more valuable due to climate change.

Trnič on Every Table (Applicant: the Kamnik Tourism and Sports Agency)
Trnič is a tasty pear-shaped cheese from Velika Planina above Kamnik and a particularity of the cultural heritage of our alpine dairy farming. The Kamnik Tourism and Sports Agency tasked themselves with an important challenge: to organise the production of Trnič cheeses on a large scale and include them in Slovenia's tourist services as part of its culinary offer. They found an appropriate cheese maker, designed the product's corporate identity and special packaging; they are making arrangements for comprehensive protection of Trnič cheeses and their sale at selected points of sale and to have them placed on the menu of top Slovenian restaurants. The expert committee welcomes this example of good practice, of how to turn a long-forgotten traditional regional food into innovation at the national level.