🌲 Rogla’s path to sustainability: what to maintain, what to evolve and what to leave behind?
Last week TranStat project partners ZRC SAZU and RAGOR held a public visioning workshop in ZreÄŤe to explore and design actions to achieve a sustainable future for the mountain resort of Rogla. The workshop was moderated by Eva Ĺ travs Podlogar, director of RAGOR, and facilitated by colleagues from Anton Melik Geographical Institute ZRC SAZU and RAGOR.
Participants welcomed the introduction of a regular bus service to Rogla. In the context of environmental protection, the recently established Pohorje Regional Park was highlighted as a new important actor in the protection of nature and cultural heritage. The participants recognised that Rogla needs to continue to provide quality services to visitors and local community, and that it needs to move away from providing services which would attract mass tourism.
đź‘€ Focus on action planning
The second half of the workshop focused on the development of thematic action plans. Rogla was highlighted as a destination, offering several inspiring transferable practices for other mountain resorts facing similar challenges. Participants reflected on current solutions and outlined further actions to fill gaps.
👩🏼‍🌾 Addressing workforce challenges
The main tourism company and operator of the Rogla ski resort (Unitur) presented its strategies to mitigate labour shortages, which had been identified as a critical challenge in previous workshops. Through regular employee reward programmes, optimised workflows and temporary hiring of retirees, Unitur has been able to retain workers, improve their satisfaction and attract more local people to work in tourism.
🌿Building resilience to climate change
According to the participants, the resilience of Rogla to climate change should build on developing year-round attractions, investing in energy-efficient snow-making systems with water recycling technologies to reduce water and energy consumption, improving accessibility by developing multimodal points and P+R facilities in ZreÄŤe, and equipping buses with bicycle trailers to support active mobility.
⛷️ The workshop reaffirmed Rogla’s commitment to become a sustainable mountain resort. The workshop resulted in several practical solutions that can inspire other mountain resorts in the Alps and beyond.
🖊️ Maruša Goluža, ZRC SAZU
