From November 28 to 30, 2023, the first Smart Tourism Skills Development Training Seminar was held in Ljubljana, part of the activities of the transnational project Smart Tourism Skills (SMARTOUR), funded under the Erasmus+ program.

More than 30 trainees from Austria, Bulgaria, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia took part in it.

Bulgaria was represented by engineer-manager dr. Velizar Petrov, executive director of RDABSCSMEs (Regional Development Agency with a Business Support Centre for Small and medium-sized Enterprises – Plovdiv), and engineer Alexander Tonkov, chairman of the board of RDABSCSMEs, partners on the project, as well as representatives of the academic staff of UARD (University of Agribusiness and Rural Development – Plovdiv) – associate professor dr. Alexander Davchev, vice-rector for Scientific Activities and Academic Staff, prof. dr. Plamen Lakov, head of the "Regional Development, Agribusiness and Tourism" department, prof. dr. Krasimir Levkov, prof. dr. Veliko Velikov and assistant dr. Vasko Vasilev.

The organizer of the seminar was the Slovenian partner – Zavod novi turizem, in cooperation with the leading partner of the project – Matej Bell University, Slovakia.

During the event, tourism experts exchanged knowledge and ideas on various topics in the field of smart tourism such as: accessibility, sustainability, digitalization, cultural heritage and creativity, cooperation, and marketing in tourism. Many illustrative case studies and the latest information on smart tourism were presented.

The project consortium received valuable and detailed feedback from the workshop participants, as well as quality assessment recommendations, which will be taken into account when developing the final project course materials.

All participants received a certificate of participation in the training seminar.