Achieving a Competitive Creative-Sustainable Gastronomic Destination

Authors

Nuša Basle Vertiz
University of Maribor, Faculty of Economics and Business
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8972-0228
Borut Milfelner
University of Maribor, Faculty of Economics and Business
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18690/um.epf.8.2026.1

Synopsis

The contribution is conceived as an extended literature review, or theoretical chapter, on the development of a competitive creative-sustainable gastronomic destination. The introductory part presents the key trends of 21st-century tourism, including the growth of global tourism, digitalization, smart tourism, individualized demand, and the transition from mass tourism towards authentic, thematic and experience-based forms of travel. Special attention is devoted to gastronomy and gastronomic tourism as integral components of cultural, creative and sustainable tourism. Gastronomy is not understood merely as food consumption, but as a cultural, identity-forming, economic and experiential phenomenon that connects local tradition, heritage, place, flavours and community. A gastronomic destination becomes competitive when it is able to integrate local culinary specificities, creativity, service quality, sustainable management and the involvement of local residents into a comprehensive tourism experience for visitors. The contribution further emphasizes that contemporary tourists actively seek authenticity, locality, responsibility and memorable experiences. In the concluding part, examples of good practices from around the world are presented, including the gastronomic destination of Saudi Arabia, the importance of crafts in Lapland, Thailand and Brazil, as well as the role of creative workshops, digitalisation, innovation, local communities, and sustainable-creative destination management.

Author Biographies

Nuša Basle Vertiz, University of Maribor, Faculty of Economics and Business

Nuša Basle Vertiz holds a PhD from the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, where she completed her doctoral studies at the Department of International Economics and Business. From 2019 to 2023, she worked as a teaching assistant in the fields of international economics and tourism at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor. She is currently employed as the director of an international family-owned company. Her academic and research interests focus on cultural, creative and gastronomic tourism. In addition to her academic career, she is a certified dance instructor and runs her own dance school. She is also the owner of a travel agency specialising in boutique and authentic travel experiences in Latin America and the Balkans. She is currently developing a unique Business Etiquette Academy, covering topics related to business protocol in cooperation with various distinguished professors. 

Maribor, Slovenia. E-mail: nusa.basle@icloud.com

Borut Milfelner, University of Maribor, Faculty of Economics and Business

Borut Milfelner is a Full Professor of Marketing and an Assistant Professor of Tourism at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor. He received his PhD in 2008 from the School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana. His research interests include marketing research, internal marketing, tourism marketing and marketing theory. His bibliography comprises more than 450 publications, including original scientific articles, papers presented at scientific conferences, scientific monographs, and independent scientific contributions or chapters in edited volumes. He has participated in several fundamental and targeted research projects funded by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, the Slovenian Research Agency, the Ministry of the Economy and the Slovenian Tourist Board, as well as in European Union projects. He is a member of the editorial boards of three international scientific journals in the field of business studies and serves as a reviewer for several Slovenian and international academic journals. 

Maribor, Slovenia. E-mail: borut.milfelner@um.si

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Volume

Med ponudbo in povpraševanjem: konkurenčnost kreativno-trajnostnih turističnih destinacij

Pages

7-62

Published

August 11, 2026

Categories

Copyright (c) 2026 University of Maribor, University of Maribor Press

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Basle Vertiz, N., & Milfelner, B. (2026). Achieving a Competitive Creative-Sustainable Gastronomic Destination. In B. M. Borut Milfelner (Ed.), Med ponudbo in povpraševanjem: konkurenčnost kreativno-trajnostnih turističnih destinacij (pp. 7-62). University of Maribor Press. https://doi.org/10.18690/um.epf.8.2026.1