Ljubljana has adopted a congress development policy up to 2020.

Ljubljana ranks among the 50 most successful European congress cities, while among the conference cities of new EU member states and the countries of south eastern Europe it is among the lower half. At the same time, it boasts all the advantages and necessary experience in the markets of central and south eastern Europe to improve its position. With this goal in mind, in 2011 Ljubljana adopted a new development policy for the meetings industry up to 2020.

All activities in the preparation of the new development policy were carried out openly and in partnership with Ljubljana’s tourism industry, who actively co-designed the policy at a series of workshops and thus the vision was created in common that “By 2020, Ljubljana is to become a leading competitive and self-confident congress and incentive destination in the south eastern European region”. It was showcased under the slogan ‘Cool capital for great meetings’.

The vision further specifies that Ljubljana will have:

• 30 medium-sized international congresses and conferences annually (with more than 250 participants),
• 50 boutique incentive events annually,
• developed its own experiential congress events,
• developed a systematic model for obtaining new congresses,
• developed a sustainable congress product and
• developed a methodology for measuring the reach and effects of the congress industry in Ljubljana.

Ljubljana is to realise its vision above all by establishing partnerships and a new business model of financing that will enable the implementation of stronger and more extensive marketing promotional activities – these are to be focused on setting up an incubator of congress candidacy, a programme of congress ambassadors in the associations segment, designing new incentives and social programmes, stimulating the development of the industry’s creative work for positioning Ljubljana as a creative congress destination, increasing the demand for Ljubljana’s congress services, while great emphasis is to be placed on exploiting already-acquired congresses for creating additional trade.

The significant challenges include efforts to improve Ljubljana’s visibility and competitiveness, as part of which key activities include improving the destination’s accessibility by air, and increasing Ljubljana’s visibility in the world.

In line with the defined congress policy measures within the Ljubljana Tourism public institute, in 2011, the congress activity was partly reorganised or upgraded to the Ljubljana Convention Bureau. Even today, half of Ljubljana’s tourism is driven by business motives, while the congress industry represents 18.5% of overall tourism in Ljubljana or 72,400 guests.

Ljubljana Tourism public institute