Slovenia's second city has acquired four new tourism products combing local heritage, cuisine, wine and pilgrimage tourism in a EU-subsidised project linking business clusters and culture.
The EUR 100,000-plus project, run by the local Chamber of Trade Crafts and Small Business and the Maribor Development Agency, is part of a broader Clusters Meet Culture project.
Worth a total of EUR 1.5m Clusters Meet Culture also involved partners from Italy, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. Most of the funding came from the European Regional Development Fund.
The chamber president Aleš Pulko was happy with what he said was for them the first major international development project, stating the intention to try for similar cooperation in the future.
Project manager Vladimir Rudl from the Maribor Development Agency described cultural heritage as an important element in appealing to visitors and boosting sales of local products.
The four new products developed in the project have already been included in the offerings of the local tourism board. They include pilgrimages as the oldest form of travel that is suitable for broadest range of visitors.
The Way of the Cross on the Gorca hill in the village of Malečnik leads past 14 chapels and is spiced up with excellent local food and selected wines with newly discovered catacombs on top.
Looking for the Drava crocodile marks the culmination of a lovely trip in a package dubbed Tastes of Štajersko, which also combines the local cuisine and selected wines.
In Vino Veritas traces the story of Archduke Janez, his pioneering work in winemaking and love for farming, while Štajersko Stories take visitors into the past at the Černe farm through old food preparation techniques.
Maribor tourism workers have in the past two years also worked on St Martin's pilgrimage trail from Via Savaria in Hungary to Slovenska Bistrica in Slovenia with the goal being to mark the path to Tours, France.
Source: The Slovenia Times
