19 Dec Advent in Vulkanland
Five days, a new region to discover, 14 seniors aged between 61 and 79 years, one young tutor and one common thing: good mood and the willingness to experience new things.
Seniors, members of different local pensioner associations in Slovenia, embarked on a journey to the unknown Vulkanland in Austria. For me, being a tutor for this group was a rewarding experience. As an outside and internal observer at the same time, I had the opportunity to see different perspectives on the concept of “tourist packages for seniors”.
We started our tour in Maribor where Mario Hofer form Spirit of Regions picked us up. From here we drove to Bad Gleichenberg, where we stayed: that’s how our so called “Advent holiday package” began. While driving through the amazing landscape of Austrian Steirmark, Mario rightly underlined what was the purpose of this travel. He explained that most tourist agencies develop programmes and packages for seniors without actually trying out things with them and asking for their opinions, needs and wishes, relying only on what they think is best for them, but no actual knowledge. This introduction gave a different feel to this “DiscOver55 journey”, a practical purpose. The participants, the so called “pilot test group”, immediately had the impression that they were part of something still to be developed and that their feedback was going to make a difference.
It is quite difficult to summarize all the activities, places we visited, attractions we saw, interesting people we met, culinary experiences which awoke our senses… Just to name a few which were most impressive for our group: the green light of Straden, the Vulcano ham factory, the workshop in which we made advent kranz (wreath) in Buschenschank (wine tavern), the walk in the forest and meditation session with Helga Kirchengast and the singalong performance at the Bad Gleichenberg advent market.
The special moments of the whole travel were the morning and evening singing sessions with Ursula and Olna. From my point of view their attitude towards each member of the group, the time they dedicated to each person and their approach in general was amazing. Judging by the comments of the group they will miss this the most.
There were activities of the tourist package which were not so much tailored to the needs of the whole group, like hiking up a hill with more than 200 slippery steps and also factors on which the organizers couldn’t have any influence, such as the weather conditions. Constant fog during the trip made it impossible to enjoy the scenery of the landscape.
Nevertheless, the group made it very clear at the end that what they appreciated most was the personal approach by the owners of the Hotel in Bad Gleichenberg, Mario Hofer from Spirit of Regions and everybody that put so much effort in making sure that the group felt they were special and warmly welcome.
Dijana Lukić, tutor, ZDUS (Slovenia)
