Page 119 - World Heritage and Tourism Innovation

Digital Innovation of Cultural Heritage:

Reflection on Slovenian Story of Success

Urška Starc Peceny Matevž Straus
ARCTUR, Nova Gorica Slovenia ARCTUR, Nova Gorica Slovenia
urska@arctur.si matevz.straus@arctur.si

Tomi Ilijaš
ARCTUR, Nova Gorica Slovenia
tomi.ilijas@arctur.si

The paper aims to look back at the ‘digital innovation of cultural heritage’ processes
happening in Slovenia in 2020, 2021, and 2022 after a public call by the Ministry of
Economic Development and Technology. The article summarises the activities and
results of a set of projects that present a novel approach to developing new tourist
offers in Slovenia. In the article, the authors – all involved in the training for tourist
destinations and the execution of some projects – look at both the results of the pro-
jects, their quality and relation to existing tourist offers, as well as at the processes
at leading tourist destinations, know-how and skill-set to conduct such projects. In
the final chapter, the authors envision the needed next steps to reach the mission
to become the leading European country in digitally enriched tourism experiences.
Keywords: tourism 4.0, heritage+, digital innovation of cultural heritage, digitisa-
tion, digitalisation, cultural heritage
https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-417-0.115-128

Introduction ism products on cultural heritage and are even less

‘Our competition is Netflix and Candy Crush, engaged in incorporating new digital interpretation
not other museums’ (Sree Sreenivasan, former technologies. The tourism sectors (tourism providers,
Chief Digital Officer of the Metropolitan Mu- tourism destination management organisations) and
seum of Art, New York). cultural heritage (GLAM and regional offices of the In-
stitute for Heritage Protection) have – despite having
On several occasions, investments in cultural heritage many touchpoints and common aims – very seldom
have shown both direct and indirect positive impacts. cooperated in co-creative processes, which changed
From a tourism development point of view, cultur- in 2019 with the Slovenian Ministry of Economic De-
al heritage presents an opportunity and a potential velopment and Technology’s mission to become the
source of new digitally enriched interpretation and leading European country in digitally enriched tour-
(tourism) experiences. Each registered object of im- ism experiences and thus combine tourism develop-
movable cultural heritage conveys a value and learn- ment with cultural heritage protection and interpre-
ing that could be interpreted digitally – and thus pre- tation. The goal was to develop new tourism products
sented to new audiences in new, engaging ways. that take inspiration from cultural heritage, engage
However, tourism management organisations are new audiences and stakeholders through digital and
typically not engaged in creating new complex tour- hybrid interpretation, and, like this, contribute to the

Proceedings of the 7th UNESCO UNITWIN Conference | 115