"Slovenian tourism has been on the rise recently. Last year, we exceeded the milestone of 11 million nights and the figures are looking even better this year," Pak said.

An even more encouraging fact is that tourism income until August rose by more than 10%, she stressed.

However, 52% of all tourist nights are generated in the four summer months. "Further growth must focus on the remaining months and it's time for us to spread our wings," Pak said.

Out of the four macro destinations introduced by the new strategy for sustainable growth of Slovenian tourism - the Alpine region, the Mediterranean region, the spa/Pannonian region and the central region with the capital of Ljubljana - the Alpine region is most dependant on the season.

Some 30% of nights are generated in the Alpine and the spa/Pannonian regions, followed by the Mediterranean with 25% and central Slovenia with 15%.

"Last year, tourism brought in EUR 2.3bn. Some 63% of the revenue came from one-day and transit visitors, who are spending less than they used to." Tourists who spend the night contributed almost 40% and their spending has been level.

"Our challenge is therefore to turn one-day transit visitors into tourists and increase the spending of all of them," the STO head believes.

In Slovenia, the revenue per hotel room available was almost 40% lower than the average in the region.

Dividing the country into the four macro destinations is to highlight Slovenia's geographic diversity and help tourists decide where they want to go, Pak explained.

According to her, the destinations are now moving from promotional and organisational activities to the management of the destination.

The promotional activities will mainly still target the Italian, Austrian, German, British, French and Russian markets, whose tourists together generate half of all tourist nights in Slovenia.

As the Slovenian capital is also a popular destination for tourists, Turizem Ljubljana director Petra Stušek said that a survey had been conducted among residents, in particular in the city centre, to see how they feel about the rising number of visitors.

"Only one in ten people living in the city centre assessed that there are too many tourists there," she said, adding that the share was even lower for the entire city population.

"People are very much aware of what tourism brings to the city and they see more positive than negative things," she said, stressing the importance of inclusion of the locals into the creation of tourist strategies.