LUV Fest Wins One of the Global Tourism Industry’s Most Prestigious Awards

Skift IDEA Awards

Skift is the world’s leading source of news, research and analysis for the global travel industry and a key reference point for senior professionals across aviation, hospitality, destination management and travel technology worldwide.

Now in their eighth year, the Skift IDEA Awards are regarded as one of the industry’s most prestigious accolades. Rather than focusing solely on marketing campaigns, they recognise projects that are actively shaping the future of travel, from destination management to technological and sustainability solutions.

The path to winning a Skift IDEA Award is rigorous and multi-stage. This year, Skift’s editorial team first selected a shortlist of finalists in each of the 32 categories from 492 entries submitted from around the world. The final winners were then chosen by an independent international jury of leading experts in sustainability, marketing and data from companies including Etihad, Marriott International, Trip.com, Hilton, Millat Group, Google and Apple. These are decision-makers who help shape the strategic development of some of the world’s leading tourism companies and destinations.

The judges scored each element of the entries numerically against predefined criteria, with the final score calculated as the average of all judges’ scores. Through this evaluation process, Skift ensures that the selection reflects a genuine expert consensus on which projects are setting new standards in the tourism industry. In the Tourism category, won by LUV Fest, the judges assessed the innovation of the marketing approach, the quality of the visitor experience, the contribution to responsible tourism and the involvement of the local community.

An Innovative Destination Management Model

Ljubljana Tourism created LUV Fest as a response to the seasonality of tourism, grounding the festival in local heritage: it begins on 8 February, Slovenia’s national cultural holiday, and concludes on 12 March, St Gregory’s Day, traditionally associated with the arrival of spring and love. Under the common theme of love, the festival brings together a rich programme actively co-created by cultural, non-governmental and educational institutions, individual creatives, young people and primary school pupils. It also provides a valuable platform for artists, particularly young artists, to present their work to a wider audience in an open-air gallery. In this way, the festival enriches life in the city, encourages the development of new content and attracts visitors during a quieter period of the tourism year.

Over the course of four years, LUV Fest has established itself as a distinctive part of Ljubljana’s tourism offering. The programme of the first LUV Fest in 2023 was created by 35 partners, while this year’s festival brought together more than 130 partners offering over 230 events. Between 2022, the last year before LUV Fest was launched, and 2025, the number of overnight stays in February and March increased by 59%, compared with annual growth of 44% over the same period (source: Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia – SURS). The festival also enjoys strong support among local residents: according to a survey on perceptions of LUV Fest, 93.8% of respondents view its concept positively, while 71.7% support holding the festival in February (source: LUV Fest Survey 2024; n=722).

Three Finalist Placements for Ljubljana Tourism

Ljubljana Tourism’s success at the 2026 Skift IDEA Awards was further reinforced by two additional finalist placements. Petra Stušek, MSc, CEO of Ljubljana Tourism, was named a finalist in the Leadership category for her international contribution to the development of destination management and her long-standing leadership in developing Ljubljana as a regenerative tourism destination.

The "Because of Us, Ljubjana is..."  campaign, expanded with Ljubljana Tourism Week, was also shortlisted in the People & Community category. The awareness-raising campaign puts local residents and their stories at its heart, demonstrating the benefits tourism brings to the city, while Ljubljana Tourism Week invites residents to experience Ljubljana through the eyes of a visitor themselves.