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The beginning of the award-winning cycling story dates back to 2014, when the BTC company took an active role in the development of recreational and professional cycling in Slovenia. What facts and figures would you highlight?

With a comprehensive strategy, we achieved tremendous results. We strengthened the cycling habits of Slovenians as proven by the increased number of participants in Marathon Franja BTC, from around 700 in 1982 to nearly 8,000 in 2016. We had a successful breakthrough in women's cycling, with the female participants in Marathon Franja BTC increasing from a small percentage to almost a third. We successfully enhanced our digital communication, the number of visits to Marathon Franja BTC City website have increased 16-fold.

We are proud that we have successfully positioned BTC as the promoter of cycling in Slovenia, supporting the company's CSR efforts and achieving its mission to create new business opportunities. A positive trend and overarching objective was also manifested in employee engagement in cycling activities. Last but not least, the BTC Cycling Story contributed to the improvement of Slovenia's position among the 27 EU countries on the cycling barometer of the European Cycling Federation. Slovenia was ranked 12th in 2013 and reached seventh in 2015.

Today, the sharing of content is multi-platform and multi-channel. According to BTC's business model, how do you deliver the messages to people where they are already seeking information?

BTC addresses its consumers through a mix of online and offline channels. We consistently publish information on relevant websites and on the intranet, as well as engaging users on social media. We have also launched a new mobile app "BTC City of Opportunities". For those who prefer searching for information via printed materials, there is our updated newspaper, BTC Vodnik. To keep relevant consumers informed or to present important projects, events and initiatives, we constantly issue different publications and we also take advantage of traditional media such as television, radio and newspapers. Together with events where we meet our stakeholders personally, this channel mix is intended to ensure an ongoing communication flow and to nurture relations with our visitors, partners, employees and other stakeholders. 

In the coming years, I look forward to embracing new technologies which are bringing a whole new world of opportunities for leveraging communication and experience with artificial intelligence and Augmented and Virtual Reality. If we think about our visitors and fashion enthusiasts for example, wouldn't it be fun to have high-tech, futuristic fitting rooms like those witnessed at Ralph Lauren's show in NYC back in 2015?

Do you target local and international consumers differently, and are there any international projects in the communication field that you would like to attract in the future?

Communication approaches for all activities and events are always tailored for each target group separately. According to Ninamedia research from 2015, 22% of visitors to BTC City Ljubljana in the research sample were foreign. Most of them were from the neighbouring countries of Austria, Italy, Croatia and Hungary. In addition to Marathon Franja BTC City, every year we organise the FIS Ski Jumping Ladies World Cup - Ljubno. Such massive events also include the UCI World Cycling Tour in 2014 and the prologue and first stage of the Giro Rosa in 2015. We are attracting more and more visitors by continuously introducing novelties into our offer. For example, we are confident that the arrival of Ikea will significantly increase the number of BTC City Ljubljana's visitors from the current 21 million.

In addition to private visitors, BTC City Ljubljana also welcomes people doing business. One example is ABC Accelerator which interacts with companies, investors and young start-ups at a global level. In addition, we are also involved in international flows with our business units: the BTC Logistics Centre and BTC PROP. It is also worth mentioning the opportunities offered by smart logistics and the planned Intermodal Logistic Terminal Ljubljana which will reinforce the presence of BTC City Ljubljana, not only in the region but also strengthening business relations more broadly.