The strategy for the development of the NW Istria Cluster was developed on the initiative of the tourist industry united in Tourist Board Umag and Tourist Board Novigrad as the first joint development and action plan for the field of meetings tourism in the cluster of the Istrian peninsula. Meetings tourism has undoubtedly exceptional potential, primarily through the creation of multiplier effects on the economy and deseasonalization. Unfortunately, meetings tourism has not been fully developed and utilised, and this was the main reason for the preparation of the Action Plan and Strategy.

The purpose and goal of the strategy is to create a useful model based on a concrete action plan and rules of procedure as a model of organisation following to the model of public-private partnership.

The strategy is a framework that, in itself, does not guarantee success. For this reason, the project was implemented in such a way that we equally included in the creation and implementation of individual programmes everyone who wanted to contribute to the improvement of meetings tourism at the destination.

In the preparation of the strategy, the key stakeholders of the incentive destination NW Istria took part. The basic starting points were formed during three interconnected workshops:

• Workshop 1, 14.02.2014: Formation of strategic starting points for the development of meetings activity
• Workshop 2, 21.02.2014: Portfolio analysis of products and demand analysis with market segmentation
• Workshop 3, 07.03.2014: Operational and Marketing Plan 2020

The group developed guidelines and strategic development areas and defined priority tasks. When designing a broader project team, we ensured a balanced composition covering all the key segments of the meetings industry.