Hiking in the Ljubljana region

Ljubljana offers direct access to the countryside from the city centre, something that makes it quite unique.

Hiking in the surroundings of Ljubljana is one of the most popular ways for the inhabitants of the city to spend their free time. The essence of the project is to develop the hiking opportunities available and bring them closer to foreign visitors to the city.

In 2018 Ljubljana Tourism identified 15 trails that are interesting both from the hiking point of view and for tourism – particularly for foreign tourists. The plan is for these to become the basis of an attractive and innovative tourism product, to which new routes will later be added.

In 2019 the development of hiking as a tourism product continued in conjunction with Austrian experts from tourism agency Saint Elmo’s Tourismusmarketing. Together with selected regional coordinators and tourism providers who are active in the hiking field or for whom the development of this product represents an opportunity, we held a series of workshops.

Hiking in Ljubljana region photo Jaka Ivancic

Photo: Jaka Ivančič

As a basis for the implementation of the workshops, we took personas of Slovenian tourism and, via them, identified an “important guest”, a “favourite guest” and a “future guest” for our hiking product. For each of them, we designed an “ideal day” in the region with an emphasis on hiking. With the help of the so-called blueprint method, we then went further into the process of planning their experience. The result of all three workshops was an in-depth analysis of our guests and their expectations with regard to hiking products.

We are developing our hiking product in a gradual manner. On the one hand, we are encouraging the development of the tourism offering for hikers, along with waymarking and the development of infrastructure and the services that complete the experience. On the other, we are working on the promotion of selected trails, which will begin shortly.