Conference Venue

Turistica is Slovenia’s first and leading higher-education and research institution dedicated entirely to tourism. Founded in 1995 as the College of Tourism Portorož, it became a founding member faculty of the University of Primorska in 2003. The faculty offers undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programmes in tourism, and its Department of Cultural Tourism has a long record of research in heritage, pilgrimage, sacred sites and the systems modelling of cultural tourism destinations. Turistica is embedded in European and global academic networks (Erasmus+, UNESCO UNITWIN, ATLAS, TTRA Europe) and regularly hosts international scientific conferences. 

The faculty stands directly on the Portorož seafront, a few minutes’ walk from the main hotels, the bus station and the beach. Sessions will be held in the faculty’s  lecture theatres and seminar rooms, all equipped for presentations and hybrid participation, with catering and social events on site and in the immediate surroundings. The whole conference – venue, hotels, restaurants and evening programme – is walkable, which leaves more time for discussion and for the region itself.

ABOUT PORTOROŽ, PIRAN AND SLOVENIAN ISTRIA

Portorož – the Port of Roses – takes its name from the medieval church of St Mary of the Rosary, once part of the Benedictine monastery of St Lawrence. From the 1890s it developed into one of the most fashionable seaside and health resorts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the belle-époque Palace Hotel of 1910 still dominates the bay. Its therapeutic tradition rests on the brine and mud of the neighbouring salt pans, worked continuously since the thirteenth century.

Four kilometres along the coast lies Piran, one of the best-preserved medieval towns on the Adriatic: a Venetian-Gothic ensemble of narrow lanes rising to the parish church of St George, with the Minorite monastery and church of St Francis, the town walls, and Tartini Square, named after the composer Giuseppe Tartini, born here in 1692. Six kilometres in the other direction is the Marian sanctuary of Strunjan, a place of pilgrimage since the apparition of 1512 and still one of the most visited Marian shrines in the Slovenian littoral. The Sečovlje Salina Nature Park preserves a working cultural landscape where salt is still harvested by hand using seven-hundred-year-old methods, together with the rituals, feast days and material culture that surround it.

The wider region is exceptionally rich for scholars of religious tourism and pilgrimage: the cathedral and old town of Koper; the church of the Holy Trinity at Hrastovlje with its celebrated Dance of Death fresco of 1490; the Slovenian branches of the Camino de Santiago; the Marian shrines of Sveta Gora above Nova Gorica and Brezje; the pilgrimage island of Bled; and, some two hours away, Škofja Loka, whose Passion Play was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016. Trieste (Italy), with its Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish and Protestant heritage, is an hour away by road, and Croatian Istria begins twenty minutes to the south.

Practical notes: Slovenia is a member of the European Union, the Schengen Area and the euro area; the currency is the euro (€). The official language is Slovene, but English, Italian and Croatian are widely spoken in the coastal region, which is officially bilingual (Slovene Italian). Late June is warm and Mediterranean, with daytime temperatures typically between 25 °C and 30 °C; light clothing, sun protection and comfortable walking shoes are recommended, together with modest dress for visits to churches and monasteries. The European emergency number is 112, tap water is drinkable, electricity is 230 V (type C/F plugs), and the time zone is CEST (UTC+2). Delegates requiring a visa should contact the Conference Secretariat in good time for an official letter of invitation.