SIW 2019 – Slovenian Incoming Workshop

Basic Event Information

Date: 16-18 May 2019
Location: Terme Olimia, Podčetrtek
Organizer: Slovenian Tourist Board
Event type: B2B Workshop

EVENT CATEGORY: CATEGORY B2B – Best Corporate Convention

Event description and key objectives

Slovenian Incoming Workshop (SIW) is the flagship B2B tourism event in Slovenia with a long-established tradition. It offers time-efficient meetings between top foreign TO/TA and Slovenian tourism suppliers and hence provides the best and most comprehensive opportunity to get to know what Slovenian tourism has to offer. This year, already the 22nd edition of the event took place. The location of the event changes on an annual basis and includes different locations all over Slovenia. This year, the venue was Terme Olimia. The Slovenian Incoming Workshop is not solely about making business. It is also about getting to know the country. This year, the event included 2-day general pre-tour of Slovenia, whole day workshop with pre-scheduled meetings and 4 different thematic post tours and 1-day local tour.

For TO/TA attending the event a number of services is provided. This includes: a return Adria Airways flight from a European airport to Ljubljana Airport (airport taxes and fees included), airport and local transfers in Slovenia, accommodation at a four-star hotel, conference brochure and supporting materials, all meals during their stay, evening events, online “one2one meetings” platform for suppliers and buyers and fact-finding tour of their choice. Slovenian Tourist Board is proud to organize the SIW, which is in many aspects considered the most important event for the promotion of Slovenian tourism.

Key challenges

Key challenges of the Slovenian Incoming Workshop are:

• How to attract TO/TA from key markets that could have high business potency for Slovenian tourism providers;
• How to create a fruitful business environment for successful meetings;
• How to create a balanced environment for strengthening communication between new/potential partners;
• How to organize fam trips in order to show a maximum of Slovenia in a short time not making the route overloaded with destinations;
• How to present Slovenia as a boutique destination for 5* experiences;
• How to run the event in the most sustainable and “green” way at all levels.

Creativity

SIW 2019 presented some changes which participants were curious about and marked as an improvement:

1. In previous years the main B2B part has been organized in the format of One to One pre-arranged business meetings, 20 minutes each, which is a powerful tool for establishing a trusting business relationship; to make 1-1s time well spent and in full attention, the time was optimized on 15 minutes.
2. Another novelty of SIW 2019 was the SIW Lounge that proved to be a perfect place for more relaxed but still business-oriented communication between partners. This new format ended to be successful, firstly, because of its location – straight beside the workshop venue, secondly, because of its extremely fashionable, effective and highly attractive ambient solution, and thirdly, as it was designed to be a handy eat&drink&talk joint place, it also optimized time spent for eating.
3. An undoubtful improvement of the event format is the new incentives where partners had the possibility to meet in an informal environment and get to know each other more and in a different way. For each of 17 team-building incentives foreign and Slovenian participants were grouped based on their main business interests.
4. 95% (even more than last year) of study tours attendees were satisfied or extremely satisfied with study tours. This year meeting with local tourism providers and establishing business contacts with them too was a matter of special attention and organization.

Innovation

• New teambuilding incentives for Slovenian and foreign participants
• New workshop for Slovenian participants “How to gain the most of SIW 2019”
• New SIW Lounge (eat&drink&talk)
• New Active morning wake-up
• The concept of evening Events is always unique and built on the Slovenian culture pointing out local characteristics
• Sustainable event on all levels
• Eco wooden reusable stands made of Slovenian wood. Slovenian providers were arranged according to the regions they are coming from, in order to facilitate the search to the hosted buyers. In that way, we also followed the
• STRATEGY FOR THE SUSTAINABLE GROWTH OF SLOVENIAN TOURISM FOR 2017 – 2021.
• Special app for prearranged SIW 1-1 meetings

Execution

The SIW was organized by a team of 4, each covering its own part of the project:

• foreign participants: contacts, invitations, registration confirmation, planning of their stay in Slovenia (bookings, transfers, flights),
• study tours: a program of study tours (4 different post-study tours and a pre-study tour),
• workshop venue and Slovenian participants (invitations, registration confirmations, new stands, branding, allocation of stands),
• application for One to one meetings, event`s website, evening event, coordination with the host Terme Olimia.

On the execution days, we were all together 20, covering 2 registration points, 1 welcome desk on the arrival terminal at the Airport of Ljubljana, 24/7 support on study tours, workshop venue. However, the mentioned number does not include all the staff from Terme Olimia, that covered catering, performers on a welcome evening, additional staff that coordinated Slovenian evening and the transfers.

Program SIW 2019: The best business date of the year:

• 15 May: Welcome to Slovenia
• 2-day pre-tour of Slovenia: MY WAY OF FEELING SLOVENIA.
• 16 May: Welcome to Terme Olimia
• Arrival of participants and Welcome evening
• 17 May: MY WAY OF DOING BUSINESS.
• Active morning wakeup (running, energy exercise, oxygen advantage)
• Slovenian incoming workshop (1-1 meetings)
• Presentation of Slovenia
• My way of making friends. (incentives)
• Slovenian night
  18-19 May: tours of Slovenia for foreign participants

Measurable results

This year’s 22nd edition of the Slovenian Incoming Workshop in Terme Olimia hosted 188 strictly selected foreign participants from 155 different companies and 37 countries, and more than 250 Slovenian participants from 163 different companies. Altogether they had more than 3500 meetings in only one day. The majority of the foreign partners were from Germany (17), Italy (18), France (11) and the USA (10). In addition, we hosted representatives from overseas markets, including Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore. The survey showed that the great majority of Slovenian and foreign participants that have already visited SIW before, noted that this year’s event was even better than in previous years which shows the undoubtful improvement on all levels. Also, those who joined SIW for the first time (72%) were extremely satisfied with the event.

Communication

Acknowledgment of Slovenia and Slovenian tourist offer as an exceptional point on the world tourist map.

• Strengthening of the existing business contacts and establishing of new contacts between future business partners.
• A vital part of the event was communicating the sustainability of the tourist offer in Slovenia
• Communication of the event was held through all channels (social media, direct invitation and promotion on targeted markets) and planed a year ahead

The use of sustainable practices

Our 10 points for Green event:

1. During all negotiations regarding the organization of SIW, sustainability and local environment involvement is of key importance.
2. Printed materials are minimalized, all information is digitalized as much as possible (ex. event app). Those prints that are hard to be avoided are printed on ecological/sustainable materials. Sponsors are asked to use centralized media (event catalogue and link in-app) for promotion instead of printed flyiers.
3. Promo gifts made of ecological materials and produced with the vision of sustainability (reuse/reduce/recycle).
4. All technical signs, logos, billboards, etc are made without date/year in order to make possible to re-use them next year. Also, good planning and organization minimize the quantity of those.
5. Transfers for participants are required to be provided by eco vehicles, more transfers are joint than an individual (max. optimization) in order to reduce CO2 pollution.
6. Eco catering inventory as bamboo boats for plates, eco pots, wooden forks….
7. Local providers for food and beverage
8. Interior design for the venue is mostly made of wood, rented, decoration made out of plants that are also rented and returned after the event
9. Garbage selective collection available for all participants during the event.
   Exhibiting stands are made from 100 % Slovenian wood and they are intended to be re-used.