After the successful presentation of the project Bank of Tourism Potentials, which has won several awards, in May 2012 in Copenhagen, we were again this year offered an opportunity to present our work to representatives of OECD member countries at the regular annual session of the OECD Tourism Committee.
The OECD Tourism Committee convenes twice a year, in April and October. Its 94th session was, by way of exception, held in Warsaw, Poland. The political part of the session's agenda included a discussion on the priority tasks within the Programme of Work of the Tourism Committee for 2015 and 2016. The Programme envisages intense activities in the field of the promotion of small and medium-sized tourism enterprises in terms of their funding.
Under this item, Slovenia presented to the delegates of the member countries the innovative project "The Bank of Tourism Potentials" as an innovative instrument for funding small and medium-sized tourism enterprises and good business ideas, within which the best ideas are selected and financed through the Snovalec competition. The Slovenian measures were presented by Ana Božičnik (from the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology). The presentation was an introduction to the part of the Programme of Work of the Tourism Committee 2015–2016 that is to develop measures to support the funding of tourism SMEs in OECD countries. Ms Božičnik said that Slovenia would be given an opportunity to present the BTPS project in more detail within the priority task "Innovative forms of funding the development of tourism SMEs", which is in preparation and is expected to be confirmed by the end of 2014.
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What is the OECD Tourism Committee?
The OECD Tourism Committee, established in 1948, is one of the oldest OECD committees. It acts as the OECD forum for discussion of topical issues pertaining to global tourism, where member countries, with the support from the chairmanship, seek common solutions to development problems and the challenges faced by the global tourism economy in the most developed countries, and adopt decisions, policies, recommendations, and common standards for tourism development at both the national and global levels. The Tourism Committee operates within the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs and Local Development (CFE), which is the key link with other OECD committees and international organisations working in the field of tourism at the global level (UNWTO, UNEP, ILO, ITF, EU, WTO, the Council of Europe, etc.). Since the challenges of the global development of tourism require a multidisciplinary and intergovernmental approach, the Tourism Committee draws up two-year programming plans whose implementation is verified at regular and, if necessary, extraordinary meetings, conferences and forums in different host countries.
The main topic of the 94th regular session of the Tourism Committee in Warsaw was an overview of current activities for the implementation of the Programme of Work of the Tourism Committee for 2013 and 2014, and the drawing up of the Programme of Work and the budget of the Tourism Committee for 2015 and 2016, which will include innovative forms of funding the development of tourism SMEs as one of the priority tasks.