As it seems, the Balkans has evolved from being "the powder keg" into "the boiling pot", where something exciting and related to local wine industry is happening, changing, improving and developing in all corners of this region.Whilst Belgrade hosted on 14 June 2014 the first professional conference dealing with the issue of wine identity, GET Association for Gastro-Culture organized the first conference on wine tourism in Međimurje (Toplice Sveti Martin) in Croatia on 16th June, 2014. The organizers' idea was to bring together professionals from the wine and tourism sector of the region, winemakers, retailers, restaurant owners, travel agents, media, to share their experiences and reflections on the present and future of wine tourism in the region. The conference was designed to offer lectures and round table panels where all present could participate in the discussion.

Some well-known faces such as Saša Špiranec, Zoltán Győrffy, Dusan Jelic, Savo Kesar, etc. were among the speakers from the region (Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia and Hungary). The importance of this conference lies in the fact that even wine tourism promoters have realized that "wine weekend" tourism has great potential to attract tourists from the region owing to good highway network, geographical proximity, lack of language barriers, knowledge of local wine regions ...

Saša Špiranec in his lecture highlighted the importance of changing attitude towards tourists, advised winemakers to explore on their own the profile of tourists who visit their wine cellars. Thus it will be easier to tailor tourist offer and meet customer expectations. One of the suggestions was setting up visitor database, interviewing tourists during the visit in order to facilitate communication with them and motivate them to visit again.

Dusan Jelić, founder of  Wines of Balkans platform and one of the most influential regional promoters on the social networks, referred to the need for branding wines from South East Europe. He also stressed the importance of social networks in promoting wine regions and wine tourism.

Savo Kesar, director and founder of Mediteraneo Wine Festival in Belgrade, certainly could speak at great lengths about  the subject of establishing and running a wine event in the mountainous Balkans. But this time, his lecture primarily related to projects that Serbia will apply for EU financing. At the same time, there is a specific project Blue Danube Route, which will  integrate 10 Danube countries in a joint promotion of wine regions along the Danube and wine tourism.

Eno-gastronomic tourism follows development of wine scene in the region, which means that it is in full swing. Its advantage is that it is not seasonal tourism, wine tourists are on the move throughout the year. Given that the Balkans region has a tremendous diversity of local wines and dishes in a relatively small area, it is necessary to define clearly and channel the offer to consumers and tourists. In this sense, regional networking and marketing and branding of the Balkan region as a wine and food region, is vitally important.

The conference in Međimurje has opened a number of topics and brought together wine and tourism professionals from the region. Now the next step is to get the ideas and visions transformed into practical projects and activities that will bring local wine lovers to all those magical places that await them just a few hours away from home ... The ideal way to spend a weekend with family and friends.

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