Daily 12 March/März - ITB Berlin

ITB Berlin English Daily 2010 Friday 12 March IX
Slovenia has extremely rich fauna and flora, with 36% of Slovenian territory now
protected by the government. Besides Triglav National Park – which contains Slovenia’s
highest peak, a symbol of the country – Slovenia has three large regional parks and 40
country parks. There is a rich variety of wildlife, including the peacock moth (Europe’s
biggest butterfly) the brown bear, European wolf and lynx.
Tourism is considered a top priority for the current government. “My presence at ITB
indicates the importance of tourism for our government,” said Foreign Minister Zbogar.
“The industry generates 12% of our GDP, and in April there will be a government level
debate about tourism promotion and we how we can best provide more financial
support for it. We will help the Slovenian Tourist Office open representative offices in
our embassies in London and Tokyo this year,” he said. “But perhaps the greatest
advantage we have in our tourism promotion is the genuine friendliness of our citizens
to foreign visitors.”
Spain’s commitment to environmental sustainability
Spain’s Ministry of Tourism has introduced a new scheme to help finance tourism
investments which are geared towards improving energy efficiency and which use green
technologies. The scheme, named Plan FuturE, is directed at hotels, villas, apartments
and rural accommodation, as well as tourism suppliers and travel agencies, and it
includes a credit package of €500 million, available to fund up to 90% of suitable
projects.
The scheme follows on from an earlier plan (Plan Renove) introduced at the start of
2009 to help finance upgrading of existing accommodation. Both financing schemes
come under the umbrella of Spain’s long-term Tourism Plan Horizon 2020, which has
environmental sustainability at its core. The Ministry aims to improve some of the earlier
tourism developments which have been so detrimental to the environment – especially
in Spain’s coastal areas – and to ensure such destructive practices do not happen again
when inland regions build up their tourism sectors.
Plan FuturE’s hopes to encourage social responsibility for conservation and the environment,
and to develop new business prototypes for sustainability. It will encourage better
management of tourism development in Spain’s emerging regional destinations, and
more public-private co-operation. Mature destinations – mostly beach resorts – will be
encouraged to create a more attractive environment that benefits residents and visitors
alike. Attempts will be made to spread tourist arrivals more evenly across the year.
Among concrete results from these government-supported initiatives is as a publicprivate
scheme to create a network of ‘green ways’ across Spain using old historic paths
and rail tracks, and a study into ways of best promoting inland rural tourism as opposed
to traditional sun & beach tourism.