This paper examines the integration of gastronomy in the creative place-making process. The study is based on the interviews with the organizers of five gastronomy events: a cooking workshop, a ...gastronomy festival, a series of gastronomy events at museums, a gastronomy theatre performance and an intimate dinner event. The contextual analysis shows that gastronomy events can contribute to five important features defining quality of place: diversity, liveliness, innovativeness, creativity and openness/tolerance. The final phase of our study brings comparison with findings in art-based place-making studies and discusses on diversity, integration in development policies and replicability potential of analyzed gastronomy events.
The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical and conceptual introduction for the special issue on the interactions between food and territory manifested in gastronomy tourism. We focus on four ...perspectives: sustainability, the role of heritage, the potential for rural development and the networking of stakeholders. The contributions critically examine the development potentials but also the weaknesses of the growing gastronomy tourism. The case study approach and qualitative methods provide a detailed and concrete insight into the emerging challenges of host communities, tourism businesses and farmers, public policy makers and visitors. The special issue also provides applicable results for stakeholders involved in the strategic development, creation and consumption of tourism offerings.
This article presents a theoretical and conceptual introduction to the special issue dedicated to branding, labelling and certification. The authors present the connections of these qualification ...instruments with regional development, multiscalarity, and actor networks from a geographical and anthropological perspective. The special issue contributes to a better understanding of the interferences and interconnections of various accompanying processes associated with branding, labelling, and certification, such as actors' practises and relationships, social power relations, alternative marketing strategies, long-term impacts on ethical values, and emotional concern.
The aim of this paper is to present a systematic review of tourism certification, labelling and branding research. To review the scientific literature, we followed the PRISMA methodological approach. ...We started by outlining the spatial and temporal distribution of research linked to certification, labelling and branding, carried out in the social sciences and humanities. In the second step, we extracted the theoretical definitions and characteristics of these three processes in tourism from a selected body of literature. We continued by analysing hierarchical and non-hierarchical relations between certification and branding, and by drawing conclusions linked to duality, or even contradictions that are emerging in this field of tourism research.
This study explores the role of stakeholders in creating and managing food tourism experiences. The main aim was to discover who participates in this process, why, and how. The research is based on ...interviews and participatory observation of twenty-two case studies mainly located in rural areas in eight Mediterranean countries. The paper focuses on two types of food experience: food events and food services with additional subtypes. The results reveal three models of stakeholder collaboration: one typical for events, one typical for services, and one emphasizing more direct interaction between visitors and local communities. The findings show diversity in the connections among stakeholders, who have different motives and roles in food experiences.
This study presents the results of an in-depth study on landscape changes over the last two centuries in the region of Bela krajina, south-eastern Slovenia. Since this region is situated along the ...Slovenian–Croatian border, immigration and emigration are permanent fixtures in the region. Due to historical reasons, population structure and land use changes occurred. With regard to these processes, two case studies were selected: settlements of Adlešiči and Bojanci. Adlešiči is a village mainly inhabited by farmers of catholic religion. Bojanci was colonized by Orthodox Uskoki, i.e. refugees from Ottoman Empire who become Habsburg soldiers who lived a military life and had different attitude towards land cultivation. Landscapes in these two settlements have its own distinctive patterns contrasting to each other in the land use, showing historically distinctive cultural landscapes. The study aimed to interpret the development of cultural landscapes in these settlements by analysing the land use changes and identifying the factors that influenced it. Even though these sites have different management regimes, they are both affected by difficult karst terrain and isolation. The results confirmed the land abandonment and overgrowth of agricultural land in both case studies, however, at different rates.
With the research we wanted to find out what are the tourism practices that tourists perceive as sustainable at tourist destinations in Slovenia that have the Slovenia Green sustainability ...certificate. We have selected eight destinations. The main method of work was surveying, followed by the analysis of the results. We analyzed 1444 surveys. We found that only 50% of respondents know about the sustainability certificate for tourist destinations, that the most recognizable sustainable practice in destinations is the possibility of using water for drinking from the tap, and that the biggest drawback in destinations is inadequate public passenger transport. We conclude that destinations should invest in more effective propaganda of the sustainability certificate and make more visible progress, especially in the field of public passenger transport.
This article analyses the accessibility of public transport in Slovenia in terms of the proximity of stops and trip frequency. By combining the Central Population Register with data on the provision ...of public transport services, geographic information systems were used to calculate the share of the population living within a 500 and 1,000 m radius from stops with a basic number of daily trips. The spatial differences in accessibility were analysed, and the population density data were utilized to identify the main gaps in provision. Moreover, the location of newer settlements was analysed in terms of their integration into the existing public transport network. It was determined that public transport accessibility in the country is relatively adequate within a 1,000 m radius; however, within a 500 m radius, it is adequate only in most urban areas. There are extensive areas without adequate accessibility, which is a consequence of low population density particularly in the countryside, whereas larger gaps in provision appear in suburban areas that have grown outside public transport corridors. The 2004–2020 study period revealed a trend of lower demographic growth than the Slovenian average in areas with the best public transport accessibility, whereas the areas of the greatest population growth and most intense residential construction have been only partly located in the vicinity of the public transport network. This confirms the hypothesis that current strategic spatial planning documents are not followed consistently, and that transport and spatial planning are insufficiently integrated.
The spatial constraints of farms in Slovenia have never been systematically studied before; however, this is an important developmental aspect of agriculture, as stated by experts in spatial ...planning, agricultural economics, and geography. This article presents the concept of farms’ spatial constraints within settlements and their effect on farms’ development potential, proposes a methodological framework for measuring them, and reveals the relation between farms’ spatial constraints and urbanization.
Agriculture plays an important role in both protecting and developing farmland. In Slovenia, the main reasons for this loss are urbanization and the implementation of large development projects that ...require the destruction of fertile farmland. About 3000 ha of farmland has been lost each year since Slovenia’s independence. The importance of agriculture and farmland is touched upon in this special issue of Acta geographica Slovenica. The authors focus on management of farmland, analyse the development potential for agriculture, observe the changes in the landscape by remote sensing, soil quality and its pollution, and land cover as an element of biodiversity. They draw attention to the lack of participation in spatial planning procedures and the question of the importance of agriculture and jobs in this sector in national economy. This introductory paper brings a short analysis of how the issue of farms’ spatial constraints and moving farm structures to new locations is perceived by municipal offices, nature parks, and the Slovenian Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry and its regional offices.
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