Innovative approaches to the development of rural tourism - examples from Slovenia.

The present text focuses on the field of innovative development of tourism in rural areas of SE Slovenia. Modern-day tourists seek out safe and green destinations that offer unique and authentic experiences. The environmental awareness of tourists tends to be increasing, therefore they are looking for destinations that highlight care for the environment. These trends, as well as the wishes of tourist visitors may be oriented towards establishing contacts with local communities, which in turn are most generally experienced in the rural environment. Furthermore, guests also seek to taste local cuisine, to discover and learn about the cultural and natural heritage and the local way of life. To meet such trends, service providers are faced with significant challenges in regard to the interpretation of heritage and potential experiences. The key factor towards increasing visitor numbers and the overall enjoyment of tourist guests is to develop excellent innovative tourism products that offer out-of-the-ordinary variations and abide by the concept of sustainable development of such destinations. Even those offers that, at first glance, may seem somewhat less attractive or even at the average level, have the potential to be upgraded into excellent tourism products in which creative and innovative approaches are applied to their implementation. In order to design innovative tourism products, inspiration may be drawn from the natural or cultural heritage, and from the intangible heritage (stories, legends, customs, and traditions). Various examples of best practice from our immediate surroundings and from further afield may also prove to be helpful, but at the same time, care must be taken to enhance them with a local touch and to strive towards utmost originality. Namely, one of the underlying risks is that the providers, in their ambition to attract and please numerous visitors, might offer a plethora of varied and less than authentic services, instead of specialising in two or three topical concepts and presenting them in a solid, innovative and original manner, leaving more general service provision to other providers operating at the destination. In this way, the quality of services on offer may be vastly improved, boosting the synergy of the local providers and improving the visibility of the destination. Thus, this strategy will make it more readily recognisable to the interested public. The present text also cites three examples of best practices from the south-eastern part of Slovenia, which, thanks to the content they present and thanks to the innovative approach to their development, have become widely recognisable tourism products, not only within the Lower Carniola (Dolenjska), but also further afield, throughout Slovenia and its wider region.