Facilitator: Andrej Dekleva
Short description: A mountain biker, writer and publisher of the mtb.si web page, organizer of events and announcer. He has missed hardly anything on the Slovene mountain biking scene for the past quarter century. Among all he is an active writer and promoter of other outdoor sports, even though mountain biking remains in the centre of his attention
Speaker: Miro Kristan
Short description: After working in media for several years, the current challenge is regional development. Natural resources in combination with sustainable use are the focus of the work that addresses river basin management, sustainable construction and mobility. Cycling is one of the user and environment friendly types of transport in the region that committed itself to low carbon economy.
Speaker: Vesna Kozar
At the Posoški razvojni center, Vesna Kozar dedicates herself mainly to the development of entrepreneurship. In particular, she is responsible for informing potential and existing entrepreneurs about financial mechanisms and funding opportunities in forms of grants and favourable loans. She has also worked as financial manager in various projects. In the past four years she has managed two cross-border projects falling under the Slovenia-Italy programme: the first one was aimed at increasing the competitiveness of small and medium-sized companies (iCON - innovative and cooperative entrepreneurship), while the second focused on cross-border intermodal cycling connections (Inter Bike). Both projects have contributed to the development and recognition of the emerging cycling destination from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea.
Speaker: Peter Dakskobler
Short description: I have dreamed of a festival like Soča Outdoor for many years and with it I am bringing together many years of my experience with tourism and event management. As a part of the local tourist board from Soča Valley I was responsible for the EU project – bicycle mobility between Slovenia and Italy – resulting in the creation of the cross-border circular cycling route and on top of that the basis for the Alpe Adria bike destination. As the head of the MTB cycling section of the mountaineering club of Tolmin, I strive to improve the local conditions for MTB and through the Slovenian MTB consortium trying to legalize mountain biking. I work with important German cycling players like Peter Immich from Freiraus and Uli Stanciu from Bike GPS with whom we have recently established Trans Slovenia. I bring together tourism, psychology and sport under the brand name Marsky, so you can be sure that the sky’s the limit.
Speaker: Jan Klavora
Short description: I have been in the sport tourism since I was a boy and I have always felt the best in the flow of the Soča River. At fifteen I started working for a local sports agency and I continued to lead and organize sport programmes as a part of the sport tourism team Maya until the end of my university studies. I spent three years working for the Go.Mica company, where I edited the Kongres magazine and organized international B2B turistic trade shows and other events. In 2012 I opened my own company. I am the organizer of Soča Outdoor Festival, the coordinator of Trans Slovenia project and an active member of Goodplace Association, which is, in collaboration with the Slovenian Tourist Board, responsible for the development of sustainable tourism in Slovenia.
Speaker: Peter Zajc
Short description: Peter Zajc is a mountain biker, geographer, project manager and researcher working at the RRA Koroška – regional development agency for Koroška region. He is a coordinator of the Slovenian Mountain Biking Consortium odprimopoti.si. For the past few years he has been involved in numerous cycling and mountain biking development activities and projects on the local, regional and national level in Slovenia. At the moment he is working on his master thesis devoted to managing of mountain biking in the natural environment based on the Pohorje Hills case study.
Speaker: Steve Taylor
Short description: Working at the University’s Centre for Recreation and Tourism Research on the west coast of Scotland, Steve has a background in the sustainable transport sector. After working in the public and private sectors, Steve left the UK to undertake his PhD in New Zealand, for which he interviewed mountain bikers in New Zealand and the UK to try to understand the range of psychological, sociological and physiological factors, along with site characteristics and information sources, which influence their participation.
Steve’s current workload is centred on consultancy and applied research. The Centre http://www.whc.uhi.ac.uk/research has recently undertaken a range of knowledge exchange projects with adventure tourism businesses and been involved in a national exercise to map adventure tourism and opportunities for growth. With extensive experience of developing EU-funded projects, he was recently the project manager for adventure projects through the INTERREG and NORA programmes, with partners in countries as diverse as Finland, Norway, Ireland and Canada.
Speaker: Darco Cazin
Short description: Darco’s company Allegra Tourismus has been developing mountain bike destinations for more than 10 years. Currently, he is working with the top resorts in the Swiss Alps, including St. Moritz, Davos and Andermatt. To make his proven method available to more riders, advocates and destinations, Darco has developed a new mobile app, the MTB AGENT.
Speaker: Pavel Hornik
Short description: Pavel is 39 years old and was born in South Moravian Wine Region. He and finished High school of forestry and after that he worked as a forester for 12 years, but changed other occupations as well. He worked as a photographer and reporter for a geographical magazine for four years, as a tourist guide for a travel agency (Nepal) and worked in heights.
Since his youth he practiced climbing, rafting. After the birth of his child he and his family moved y to Rychlebské Mountain where he started to practice mountain biking. In 2007 he started renovating and adapting old hunting pavements for MTB riding. In autumn 2008 he visited Wales where Dafydd Davis explained how the trail centers in UK work.
After his return he started the project of the Trailcenter Rychlebské Stezky – at the beginning as a non-profitable organization with volunteers, later with unemployed people with the support of the Employment office. This project started with zero budget but with huge enthusiasm.
In September 2009 the first trail circle in length of 18 km was opened and it was created by renovating old hunting paths. Next year easy trails for beginners were opened. Since 2010 Pavel worked as town mayor for 2,5 years. Since then every year a new trail is opened and from the year 2013 a new visitors centre is located at Rychlebske stezky and Pavel is working as its managing director. He is also the author and designer of most of the trails, except for the Superflow trail, which was built in cooperation with Rowan Sorrel from Wales. Last year Rychlebske Stezky was awarded by mark IMBA riding centre. Every year over 30,000 visitors ride the trails. These days this centre has over 75 km of trails, 40 km of which are single tracks of various types and difficulties.
Speaker: Maja Konečnik Ruzzier
Short description: Maja Konečnik Ruzzier is an associate professor of marketing at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Professor Konečnik Ruzzier has authored or co-authored more than 40 papers on branding, tourism, destination and SMEs, which have appeared in journals such as Journal of Business Research, Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel Research. Her articles are well cited (with 997 citations according to Google Scholar as of January 2015); in particular, her article published in Annals of Tourism Research in 2007 is the most-cited article over a five-year period (2007-2012). She has served on several editorial boards and acted as a referee for more than 20 scientific journals. In addition, she has been involved in the development of marketing and branding strategies for many organizations, including her significant contribution in the development of the actual country brand I feel Slovenia.
Speaker: Andrej Žigon
Short Description: Andrej has graduated at the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he received also his MSc. For the last 16 years he has been involved in action sports and mountain biking, first as an athlete and later as a marketing specialist and action sports/mountain biking infrastructure consultant. He worked as a marketing director for the leading European snow park development company Schneestern and gained experience in the field of mountain biking tourism in British Columbia, Canada. He was also employed as the marketing director of TMG-BMC Ltd., a company responsible for muscle diagnostics and training optimization in elite sport institutions such as FC Barcelona, Manchester United FC, etc. He is the co-founder and CEO of Alliance Action Sports Experts company, where he is responsible for the development of mountain biking tourism. He has been an invited speaker for conferences organized by UNWTO, International Mountain Bike Association, Ride Kongress and others.
Speaker: Tine Mahkovec
Short description: The beginnings of his career are similar to those of thousands of other bikers' – He discovered the bike when he was very young, and with the encouragement of his friends he progressed from riding behind his house to competing in an always attractive discipline – downhill. Since then, his way continues somewhat atypically. He first showed desire for the organization of events and with MTB club Rajd he successfully organized a few dozen races in different parts of Slovenia and carried out several uncompetitive projects. From there on he quickly became the team's leader. At first it was just a national team but it soon grew into an international team with competitors from several European countries. He started a new chapter of his life at the team's main partner, Unior from Zreče, where he became a successful leader of the global programme for bicycle tools. Since then he combines the role of the product and sales manager for bicycle tools, the director of Unior Team and the president of Rajd club.
Speaker: Iztok Kvas
Short description: Iztok Kvas has been an event manager for the past 19 years. He was mostly involved in action sports events, such as mountain biking, snowboarding, skateboariding and also played a major role in ''classic'' sports events, like alpine skiing (Golden Fox event - FIS Ski World Cup, Maribor). He was the race director of the UCI Mountainbike World Cup races that took place in Maribor – Pohorje (2002-2010) and FIS Alpine Snowboard World Cups (2013-2015). In 2010 he became the manager of the Bike Park Pohorje, where he organized different bike event, which constitute a significant part of what is provided for the custumers including the IXS European Downhill Cup Series. According to his rich experience he gained over the last decade, while being strongly involved in action sports in various fields, he shares constructive arguments that a mtb location without any events cannot be competitive on the market in the future.
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