OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2024

Slovenia

Tourism in the economy and outlook  

Tourism is a key contributor to the Slovenian economy. Travel exports represented 28% of total services exports (or almost EUR 3.3 billion) in 2023 but remained below the pre-pandemic levels of 33%. Tourism-related industries employed almost 69 600 persons in 2023, accounting for 7.4% of the total workforce and increased by 0.5% compared to 2019. Tourism is continuing to recover after its direct contribution to national GDP fell to 3.3% in 2020, down from 5.4% in 2019.

In 2023, Slovenia saw almost 4.7 million international visitors at commercial accommodation establishments, representing 99% of pre-pandemic levels. The top international source markets in Slovenia were Germany (15%), Italy (11%) and Austria (9%). International tourism accounted for almost 11.6 million overnight stays, a 244% increase compared to the pandemic low in 2020. Domestic tourism performs strongly in Slovenia. In 2023, 1.5 million domestic tourists and almost 4.6 million overnight stays were recorded at commercial accommodation establishments, returning to pre-pandemic levels after a surge in domestic tourism from 2020 to 2022.

Tourism governance 

The Ministry of Economy, Tourism and Sport was established in 2022, with the Tourism Directorate, the responsible governmental body for tourism policy and its implementation. The Tourism Directorate is divided into the Division for Tourism Development and the Division for Business Environment in Tourism.

The Ministry assures the legal framework for better tourism governance and stimulates the business environment for tourism SMEs, encourages co-operation between public and private stakeholders, and ensures the effective management of the tourism budget.

The Tourism Council, established by the Ministry, consists of government and industry representatives and is the main political body for co-ordinating tourism policy. The Ministry co-operates and consults with the Tourist and Catering Chamber, the Chamber of Crafts and Entrepreneurs and the Tourist Association of Slovenia and other representatives of the tourism sector. The Tourist Association of Slovenia is a national non-governmental organisation comprised of more than 600 local tourism associations.

The Slovenian Tourist Board is a public agency responsible for the marketing of Slovenia’s tourist products and services as well as the programme for enhancing the sustainable development of Slovenian tourism. The Tourism Board acts on an annual work programme funded by the national tourism budget for tourism, and is responsible for programme activities related to collecting and sharing data to support the green and digital transformation of tourism, conducting research and surveys, tourism marketing and knowledge promotion, developing products and strengthening destinations management by supporting networking in the tourism ecosystem.

The entire State tourism budget dedicated to tourism in 2023 amounted to EUR 32. 2 million of which EUR 17.7 million were allocated to the STB working programme implementation. The national budget for 2023 represents a 65% increase compared to the previous year, resulting from the implementation of the Slovenian Tourism Strategy 2022-28. In addition, the EU allocated EUR 217 million to the development of tourism until 2029 as part of the National Resilience and Recovery Plan and the EU Cohesion package for Slovenia.

Slovenia: Organisational chart of tourism bodies

Source: OECD, adapted from the Ministry of the Economy, Tourism and Sport, 2024.

Tourism policies and programmes

The Slovenian Tourism Strategy 2022-28 aims to address the gaps tourism destinations and tourism providers face related to the adaption to the green transition, digitalisation and the rapid change in tourists needs and expectation in a post-pandemic context. The Strategy promotes the country’s key strategic objective to become a green boutique destination with high value-added for satisfied tourists and locals. The Strategy comprises five pillars:

• Providing safe, sustainable, and attractive experiences.

• Mitigating the effects of the crisis and adjustment of businesses.

• Understanding new consumer needs and new market segmentation.

• Maximising the use of digital technology.

• Building sustainable relationships with businesses, tourists, and local communities.

The Strategy focuses on green tourism and particularly emphasises environmental sustainability and tourism carbon footprint reduction. The green transformation of enterprises and destinations will be achieved through a series of programmes and measures, including:

• The Green scheme of Slovenian tourism with the certification system Slovenia Green. In the first half of 2024, Slovenia Green certificates (first awarded in 2015) were approved for 60 destinations, 159 accommodation providers, 68 restaurants, four nature parks, nine tourist agencies, 13 attractions and two beaches. The Slovenia Green scheme and the green and sustainable indicators are continually revised to ensure they are fit for purpose.

• New assessment and measurement methods for green certification will be introduced, according to the new set of sustainable indicators. These will be introduced within the National Tourism Information Centre (NIS) by the end of 2024 and shared with the wider public in 2025 (see box below).

• A database to monitor actual green progress of individual destinations and providers, will be established. The database will enable comparison and benchmarking between providers and destinations through destination dashboards.

The promotion of work, jobs and careers in tourism remains a priority for Slovenia. In 2023, the Tourism Workforce and Career Opportunities Programme is implemented in co-operation with the Ministry, the Tourism Board and private sector associations. Under the programme, a special career portal named I create experiences was established. The portal presents education and apprenticeship opportunities, aggregates information on employer incentives, scholarships, job vacancies and includes a calendar of events such as education promotion events, career fairs and careers competitions. The portal also highlights the experiences of successful individuals who chose a career in tourism or hospitality and succeeded in both their personal and professional lives (see chapter 2).

The Strategic Development Partnership for Innovation in Tourism also implements a special programme to promote the enrolment of young people in vocational, secondary, and higher education programmes for hospitality and tourism. The programme aims to increase the volume of tourism and hospitality professionals and enhance the workforce skills to strengthen the resilience of the sector. The programme activities are aimed at young people who consider further education, upskilling, or reskilling as well as their parents, teachers, and school counselling services. The programme sits under the framework of the national campaign My Slovenia, which promotes key institutions and its activities participating in the tourism ecosystem.

A National Information Hub for Tourism in Slovenia

The new National Tourism Information Hub (NIS) is part of a horizontal development policy led by the Slovenian government in the field of digitalisation. This on-going project, managed by the Slovenian Tourist Board, aims to create a unique data hub where local, national, and international tourism-relevant data will be collected and processed, to enable and ease data-driven decision-making. NIS will focus on accelerating green and digital transition and upgrading the Green Scheme of Slovenian tourism.

The implementation of a comprehensive information hub began at the end of 2022 and is expected to be completed by the end of 2025. The project covers two parallel phases: (i) Implementing a modern digital analytical tool for measuring the impacts of tourism on all leading Slovene tourism destinations, to foster the industry’s sustainable transition; and (ii) Measuring tourism flows in leading destinations and managing the geographical distribution of tourism development in a more sustainable way.

The prototype development phase with the analysis of data sources, preparation of functional specifications, implementation design and architectural scheme for the NIS hub has been carried out and completed in 2023. The implementation phase is due to be commenced in 2024. Due to the complexity of the project, experts from several fields, such as information technology experts, data analytics, experts on artificial intelligence and machine learning, will participate in the implementation phase.

Statistical Profile

Slovenia: Domestic, inbound and outbound tourism

	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
TOURISM FLOWS, THOUSAND
Domestic tourism1
Total domestic trips	..	..	..	..	..
Overnight visitors (tourists)	1 508	1 528	1 849	2 171	1 933
Same-day visitors (excursionists)	..	..	..	..	..
Nights in all types of accommodation	4 519	4 405	5 850	6 457	5 507
Hotels and similar establishments	3 934	3 815	4 983	5 630	4 808
Other collective establishments	584	589	867	826	699
Private accommodation	..	..	..	..	..
Inbound tourism
Total international arrivals	..	..	..	..	..
Overnight visitors (tourists)	4 425	4 702	1 216	1 832	3 936
Same-day visitors (excursionists)	..	..	..	..	..
Top markets
Italy	599	597	159	162	434
Germany	506	585	289	414	681
Austria	382	396	143	171	363
Croatia	219	235	82	63	214
Netherlands	185	187	45	108	203
Nights in all types of accommodation	11 176	11 371	3 354	4 794	10 075
Hotels and similar establishments	9 826	9 923	2 802	3 844	8 421
Other collective establishments	1 350	1 448	552	950	1 654
Private accommodation	..	..	..	..	..
Outbound tourism
Total international departures	5 409	6 049	1 892	3 030	4 727
Overnight visitors (tourists)	3 188	3 170	1 138	2 123	3 161
Same-day visitors (excursionists)	2 221	2 879	754	907	1 566
Top destinations
Croatia	1 732	1 572	817	1 274	1 720
Italy	236	289	87 e	120	265
Austria	204	189	50 e	79 e	117
Germany	191	140	..	62 e	78 e
Bosnia and Herzegovina	142	200	..	183	251
TOURISM RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURE, MILLION EUR
Inbound tourism
Total international receipts	2 870	2 998	1 279	1 726	3 021
International travel receipts	2 704	2 843	1 237	1 685	2 972
International passenger transport receipts	166	155	41	41	49
Outbound tourism
Total international expenditure	1 585	1 583	838	1 206	1 761
International travel expenditure	1 483	1 500	805	1 173	1 733
International passenger transport expenditure	103	83	33	33	28

.. Not available; e Estimated value

1. Source: supply side survey.

Source: OECD Tourism Statistics (Database).

Statlink

Slovenia: Enterprises and employment in tourism

	Number of establishments1	Number of persons employed
	2021	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
Total	..	..	..	..	..	..
Tourism industries	30 298	68 150	69 253	62 058	66 354	68 096
Accommodation services for visitors	9 606	17 570	17 796	14 251	16 396	16 616
Hotels and similar establishments	5 126	10 235	10 378	8 870	10 871	9 623
Food and beverage serving industry	7 437	25 322	26 106	22 588	24 693	25 354
Passenger transport	1 123	5 826	5 420	4 778	4 696	4 895
Air passenger transport	142	736	302	291	312	296
Railways passenger transport	1	c	c	c	c	c
Road passenger transport	916	4 430	4 449	3 846	3 767	3 946
Water passenger transport	64	c	c	c	c	c
Passenger transport supporting services	445	3 126	3 191	5 078	4 965	5 120
Transport equipment rental	333	469	489	457	474	492
Travel agencies and other reservation services industry	931	2 257	2 368	1 683	1 791	2 007
Cultural industry	6 240	8 197	8 372	8 263	8 278	8 310
Sports and recreation industry	4 183	5 383	5 511	4 960	5 061	5 302
Retail trade of country-specific tourism characteristic goods	..	..	..	..	..	..
Other country-specific tourism industries	..	..	..	..	..	..
Other industries	..	..	..	..	..	..

.. Not available; c Confidential data

1. Data refer to number of enterprises.

Source: OECD Tourism Statistics (Database).

Statlink

Slovenia: Internal tourism consumption

Million EUR

	2020
	Domestic tourism expenditure	Inbound tourism expenditure	Internal tourism consumption
Total	..	..	..
Consumption products	1 326	1 506	2 908
Tourism characteristic products	928	627	1 632
Accommodation services for visitors	263	246	555
Food and beverage serving services	295	190	486
Passenger transport services	189	55	244
Air passenger transport services	..	..	..
Railways passenger transport services	..	..	..
Road passenger transport services	..	..	..
Water passenger transport services	..	..	..
Passenger transport supporting services	..	..	..
Transport equipment rental services	..	..	..
Travel agencies and other reservation services industry	27	12	39
Cultural services	70	11	112
Sports and recreation services	84	112	197
Country-specific tourism characteristic goods	..	..	..
Country-specific tourism characteristic services	..	..	..
Other consumption products	398	879	1 277
Tourism connected products	..	..	..
Non-tourism related consumption products	..	..	..
Non-consumption products	..	..	..

.. Not available

Source: OECD Tourism Statistics (Database).

Statlink