This year, Adria Airways, Slovenia’s national carrier will be introducing new seasonal routes from its second base which is Priština. At present, Adria continues to have direct flights from Priština to Ljubljana, Frankfurt and Munich. But this summer, they will be adding flights to Brussels, Dusseldorf, Copenhagen and Paris Charles De Gaulle.

Priština Airport will likewise have new seasonal services for this summertime which includes Norwegian Air Shuttle that will have flights from Gothenburg and Oslo, Helvetic Airways from Berne in Switzerland and Belle Air Europe to Stuttgart.

Burger King, a very popular US fast food chain is opening its very first outlet in Slovenia soon. According to reports, AmRest, a Polish firm has signed a preliminary agreement with Burger King Europe for its plan to open outlets in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The biggest competitor of Burger King will be McDonald’s, a popular international fast food chain too that has currently 15 outlets over Slovenia. Although it currently has a lot of branches which opened first in 1993, McDonalds was actually not the very first fast food chain in Slovenia. It was Dairy Queen that opened first during the 1990s.

AmRest actually runs a lot of franchises of international brands like Pizza Hut, Starbucks and KFC in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia.

The very first eco hotel in Slovenia namely Bohinj Park Hotel has recently got high performance acoustic solutions from Fantoni Group, an Italian office furniture manufacturer. The said hotel had to comply with over 250 environmental sustainability criteria to be certified by the Green Globe International Sustainable Tourism Society as Slovenia’s first “Eco Resort”. Bohinj Park Hotel represents one of the most advanced hotels located within Central Europe when it comes to energy efficiency. Some of the features that show the company’s commitment to become energy efficient is their heat pumps, cogeneration and wells for extracting water.

Adria Airways, Slovenia’s national carrier will begin to have seasonal summer flights from Ljubljana to Split starting May 21 of this year. Flights will take place once a week which is every Saturday using the Bombardier CRJ900 jet. Furthermore, Adria Airways got full rights to operate charter flights from Split to Kristiansand in Norway. Such service will help in continuing the flights between Ljubljana and Split that is once per week.

From May 28 to June 4, 2011, the 2011 British Paragliding Open series happens at Kobarid. There is approximately 150 places available during this FAI Cat 2 event.

For the event, xTc and Passion Paragliding will be joining forces to run a pre-comp training week from May 22 to 28 for the pilots to get familiar with the area, its launches and cross country potential. The total training week costs will be £395 (475€) which covers the transfers/flying fees, guiding and training but excluding accommodation. To know more about this or perhaps book on the course, you may get in touch with Brett or Toby. After the event, the Polish competition will follow to be held at the same location.

For those individuals who are planning to take a trip to Slovenia, you’d be lucky to witness some of the best and special events of the country as they celebrate their 20^th year of declaration of national independence.

Among the highlights is the Statehood Day to be held on June 25, 2011 that is actually a mark on the day when the country’s independence was officially declared in 1991. The event will then be followed by a meeting of Slovenians worldwide on the 21^st of July at Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital city.

The events included during the celebration according to the national tourist board range from exhibitions at certain venues like Museum of Recent History in Celje and the National Liberation Museum in Maribor. Tourists can also visit certain parts of the country’s permanent attractions, such as the castle, bridges and old town area of Ljubljana. You can visit Slovenia through booking with the following carriers: easyJet, Swiss, Lufthansa together with other carriers.

Ljubljana entices visitors every Saturday as they present to them their colorful Art and Crafts Market located at the Ljubljanica River banks. It is called Ljubljana’s Montmartre wherein some artists and craftsmen exhibit and sell their products together with hosting free creative workshops for young people and those young at heart as well.

The said market has been open to visitors for over eight years from May to October every Saturday in between 9 am to 4 pm. They likewise feature some of the best works of mainstream painters, sculptors, ceramics artists and designers offering a lot of things including those unusual ones like unique clothing and accessories, innovative and eco-friendly wooden toys, jewellery crafted from silver plated wire and semi-precious stones utilizing bobbin lace-making techniques, porcelain and ceramic products and a lot more.

The goal of the market is to allow artists to have an avenue to present their talents and gain recognition and at the same time, revive the town’s cultural and art attractions and events. Every year, the project is upgraded including the addition of new content and artists, so come and visit them!

During the press-conference at the end of the summit in between Russia and Slovenia, President Danilo Turk from Slovenia cited that he supports the probable visa free travel between Russia as well as EU.

The Slovenian president claims that this partnership with Russia does have a purpose for the EU and must be dealt with accordingly. With this partnership, Turk firmly believes that the visa-waiver program will be a great step in moving forward. Aside from the citizens from USA, Canada, and Australia, residents from Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Brunei, Venezuela, Panama, Paraguay, Japan, Chile, Croatia, Malaysia, Nicaragua and Honduras don’t demand a visa to visit the countries within EU.

The draft of the visa abolition agreement has been prepared by Russia early this year who is hoping for a positive response from EU by the end of this year. Yet, Russia will not alter the visa regime with the EU countries if ever they are not still prepared for the visa abolition.

Jat Airways company will be the very first airline outside the European Union that was approved to connect flights between two EU countries which are Slovenia and Italy. The Italian air traffic authorities have permitted Jat Airways to have flights from Portoroz, Slovenia, to Rome, Italy throughout the winter season. The said permission was because of the bilateral agreements signed between two sides involved. In line with the winter schedule, the airline passengers can travel from Belgrade to 32 cities in 23 countries aroun the world.

EasyJet, a low cost airline has cancelled its plans to start flights from Milan to Ljubljana which was planned to start this 9^th of December 2010. The flights were supposed to be thrice weekly and were cancelled because of low interest. However, the airline’s plan to inaugurate services from Paris to Ljubljana this December 2 isn’t affected by this cancellation. For many years already, there are a lot of low cost airlines that failed in Slovenia because they weren’t able to attract passengers. Other airlines with previous low cost attempts were Wizz Air’s flights from both Brussels Charleroi and London Luton. Both routes began in May 2006; however Luton was dropped on February while Charleroi lasted until March 2008. Ryanair operated flights coming from London to Maribor from June 2007 until March of 2008. Consequently, Adria Airways now gets 80% of both frequencies and shares within Ljubljana Airport in 2010.