Juliana Trail wins the ITA 2020 Best Europe Tourism Project Award

The BGTW announced the winners of the BGTW International Tourism Awards in a special online event, BGTW’s Really Big Reveal, on 18 April 2021. Juliana Hiking Trail won in the Best Europe Tourism Project section.

The project was nominated by award-winning travel writer Rudolf Abraham, who is a great friend of Slovenia. Here is what they wrote about the project:

WINNER: Best Europe Tourism Project

Juliana Hiking Trail, Slovenia

Nominated by Rudolf Abraham

The Juliana is a superb new long-distance hiking trail through Slovenia’s breathtakingly beautiful Julian Alps, with an eye on slow tourism and sustainability. Designed to reduce the strain of visitor numbers on Triglav – the country’s highest and most popular mountain, which suffers increasingly from overcrowding and trail erosion – the Juliana makes a 270km circuit around this iconic peak, without actually climbing it.

Rather than the usual two-day blitz on Triglav, it encourages visitors to stay longer and explore the surrounding area (which after all is equally beautiful), taking in several less well-known valleys and even ducking over the border into Italy for a stage.

A core principle behind the Juliana was encouraging the use of public transport, rather than bringing a car – almost every stage begins in a village or town accessible by bus or train. This in turn helps keep bus routes running, meaning locals can continue using them.

The BGTW International Tourism Awards (ITA) recognise excellence in tourism projects in four categories:

Best UK and Ireland Tourism Project

Best Europe Tourism Project

Best Wider World Tourism Project

The Armchair Award

The members of the British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW) travel the world and report back on projects and initiatives they think deserve notice. For the International Tourism Awards, projects are proposed by members. Once verified, nominated projects are put out to BGTW members for voting. 

The shortlist is announced at the start of September with up to six finalists in each of the four categories. In the category Best Europe Tourism Project, 2 out of 6 project were from Slovenia: Juliana Hiking Trail and The Secret Rooms of Hotel Jama in Postojna.

Sourced from The British Guild of Travel Writers Webpage.

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