Turizem
Sustainable tourism needs a holistic approach that includes urbanism, public transport and housing.
In 2024, tourism is expected to reach pre-Covid levels contributing 5.4% to GDP (8.5% with indirect effects) and employing around 8% of the Slovenian workforce. With the majority of the 63.3M€ (2022) tourism budget coming from the EU’s nextGen and ReactEU programs for green/digital/sustainable infrastructures and destinations, Slovenia’s Tourism strategy 2022-2028 is focussing on quality tourism, stakeholder satisfaction as well as sustainable tourism.
Yet, judging by sentiment in popular tourist destinations, parts of Slovenia seem to no longer cater to its own citizens with inner cities being commercialised, prices being based on tourist budgets rather than disposable income of Slovenians and housing no longer being available due to short-term rentals reducing the amount of dwellings available. To avoid following other European metropoles such as Venice or Barcelona who already feel the backlash of over-tourism and citizens being crowded out, Volt wants to revisit and adjust the goals of our tourism strategy to meet its sustainability objectives.
In addition to proposals already made for improving Slovenia’s public transport infrastructure and accessibility (as well as affordable housing), Volt Slovenia proposes the following measures:
Communication
Promote not only sustainable tourism in Slovenia but also sustainable travel to and from Slovenia. With a reliable transport infrastructure, it should be easy to visit our country and all major tourist destinations by train/public transport instead of using a car.
Introduce 1€ weekend train tickets for Slovenian citizens to selected destinations (mountains, sea, villages) during summer holidays similar to french regional programmes to incentivize travel by train and make brief holidays affordable to the whole population.
Increase efforts to balance tourism within Slovenia by also developing the regions outside of Ljubljana, Bled, Postojna in the eastern part of the country.
Urbanism
Introduce quotas of non-commercialisable space and support non-tourist establishments in key tourist zones to ensure accessibility by locals and recreate a mixity of commercial activity (not every store needs to sell dragons or ice cream in Ljubljana’s city center).
Number of visitors
Set a “sustainability cap” for the number of visitors if Slovenia continues to follow Croatia as EU member states with the highest growth in international tourist trips/1 000 inhabitants (1995-2022, Croatia +1120%, Slovenia +400%).