The agency was created from the tourism department of the SPIRIT&FACELIFT agency some three years after SPIRIT was established in a merger of the Agency for Entrepreneurship and Foreign Investments (JAPTI), the Slovenian Tourism Board (STO) and the Technology Agency (TIA).

The Tourism Marketing and Promotion Agency, which will use its former acronym STO, will focus above all on promotion of Slovenia as a tourist destination. This year, a total of some EUR 9m is to be invested in promotion campaigns.

STO acting director Maja Pak has told the STA that a new web portal will be set up, adding that it will have to become one of the best in the world.

Slovenia has been recording a positive trend in tourism in the past few years. In the first six months of 2015 alone the number of foreign tourists increased by 9.6% year-on-year, while the number of overnight stays was up 6.6% in the same period.

Moreover, 65% of tourists in Slovenia are foreigners, they generate 60% of overnight stays, according to the latest data released by the Statistics Office.

Economy Minister Zdravko Počivlašek, who has worked in tourism before becoming minister, hopes to increase tourism revenue from EUR 2bn to EUR 3bn.