Turistica team wins hackathon with innovative solution

On Tuesday, 29 November and Wednesday, 30 November 2022, a group of three students from UP FTŠ Turistica participated in the hackathon "Ecodesign in Circular Economy and Green Transition of Slovenian Tourism". With their excellent and innovative idea on how to reduce food waste in Hotel Bohinj, they convinced the visitors and won. 

Turistica students Kaja Hostnik, Petra Klanšek and Denis Turnšek tackled the challenge of the Alpinia d.o.o. company: "How to reduce food waste in Hotel Bohinj?". All participants of the hackathon came up with innovative and excellent solutions to the challenge and competed for rich prizes. The Turistica team presented research-based solutions in various areas of operational activities at Hotel Bohinj's  that will help reduce food waste. The main idea was to improve the existing Bohinj Hotel app. The idea of our team, developed under the watchful eye of mentors Assoc. Prof. Emil Juvan and Mag. Miha Bratec, was to encourage visitors to book a table in advance offering small benefits, as well as to pre-select dishes as an element of sales promotion. "Many people look at the restaurant menu in advance and decide what they want to eat before they visit. In Slovenia, there is no system yet that offers guests the opportunity to decide in advance what they will eat that evening or the next day. Moreover, it would allow the restaurant to better optimize its food procurement and, as a result, waste less food," the students emphasized in their pitch, and based on the votes of the visitors won the hackathon. 

The two-day hackathon "Ecodesign in Circular Economy and Green Transition of Slovenian Tourism", organized by the National Institute of Chemistry within the framework of the Circular Economy SRIP with the financial support of the Republic of Slovenia and the European Union from the European Regional Development Fund and in cooperation with numerous supporters, organised various sustainability challenges for 12 teams of students from top companies. The teams competed for a prize with their innovative ideas and the winning teams of the challenges presented their solution at the main event on Wednesday 30 November 2022 at the City Hotel in Maribor, where visitors voted and chose the best team: team Turistica.

The hackathon is part of the wider event "Ecodesign in the Circular Economy and the Green Transition of Slovenian Tourism", which aims to present an overview of the state of the art and visions of circular solutions and the transfer of knowledge through ecodesign to the tourism sector. 

We congratulate the students and look forward to their success!