Page 69 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol. 3(1) (2015). Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem/University of Primorska Press.

ia universitatisas an ideal product mix between the coastal and
6 | m. koščak – the challenges for sustainable tour ism development ... 69 the rural elements, which may be seen as sus-
tainable in the longer term perspective. Further-
more, such a plan will have the intrinsic capacity
in helping to revitalise the rural part of Slovene
Istria, which to a degree has suffered from a lev-
el of peripherality from the more intensive tour-
istic development of the coastal region. The
main aim of the project was therefore to stim-
ulate tourism development in the hinterland of
the Slovene coast. This aim should be pursued
by offering support to rural business initiatives,
by improving the infrastructure and by intensive
marketing activity with focus on rural hinter-
land of Slovene Istria.
Stages of Commercial Product
Adaptation and Implementation
For a change from Heritage Trails in Dolenjska
and Bela krajina, Heritage Trails in Slovenia Is-
tria was, sadly, never officially launched, neither
on the domestic nor on the international mar-
ket. The reason for this failure lay in the fact that A tourist destination is defined as a “geograp-
tourist stakeholders in this coastal region, whi-
ch was traditionally and remains now the most
visited tourism region in Slovenia, were fixa-
ted in the past achievements of tourism activi-
ty. As a result, in the current contemporary en-
vironment, which holds greater challenges and
demands, they have been unable and to a de-
gree unwilling to make that critical step forward
to co-operate, to engage and to agree an effici-
ent and long-term public-private partnership &
co-operation, which will perform as Destinati-
on Management Organisation (DMO). Such a
DMO would and should act on behalf of all tou-
rist stakeholders in the region and by the synergi-
es thus created dynamise the entire tourism offer
for this region. Regrettably, such an organisation
does not exist in this region of Slovenia and un-
fortunately it is the only Slovenian tourism regi-
on which is without such an important capacity.
This is kind of paradox, but on the other side a
painful reality which already reflects in some to-
urism figures and statistics (see below).
Figure 7: Tourist arrivals (blue) and overnights (red) with
trends, Source RRC Koper, 2015.
This figure shows, and we can interpret it as
such, that the traditional sun, sea and sand prod-
uct (3S), is not in trend anymore and that its life
cycle is declining. Unfortunately it was a lost op-
portunity to launch a Heritage Trail and to fo-
cus more on the rural offer some years ago when
the opportunity was ripe for such actions. It is
not our intention to speculate and insist that
this will change the figures presented above,
but we believe that a Heritage Trail type struc-
ture would open immense opportunities for ru-
ral entrepreneurs and offer them new challenges
for new jobs in their home-yards in rural Istria.
Certainly the evidence presented in Case Study
1, shows how such a potential can reach a realis-
tic and achievable end.
Tourism Destination and DMO
– Challenge No. 2 for S Primorska?
hical area, territorial-administrative unit or an
important attraction that is trying to offer its
visitors experiences which can range from accep-
table to unforgettable.”1 From a conceptual point
of view, that is if we take into consideration the
manageability of a destination, it is far more ef-
ficient to regard a destination as a geographical
region that has its necessary critical mass or as
a cluster attraction, so that the destination can
1 Bornhorst, T., Ritchie, J.R.B., Sheehan, L., “Determinants of touri-
sm success for DMOs & destinations: An empirical examination
of stakeholders’ perspectives“, Tourism Managment, Article in Press,
July, 2009, 1.