Bostjan Horjak, Chief Executive Officer at Liberty Adriatic DMC and Chief Sustainability Officer at Liberty International Tourism Group, is a passionate, energetic leader who thrives on exploring new ideas and connecting with people. Happy clients motivate him the most. For him, making clients happy is a bigger success than financial results, and it continues to inspire him for the future.
He does not view success through the prism of money, although he agrees that it opens multiple opportunities. According to him, the ultimate definition of success is living a balanced life that allows for professional opportunities, along with making time for loved ones and enjoying social activities.
Father’s Frequent Travels Sowed Interest in Tourism Industry
Bostjan’s father worked as a sales manager in a textile company in Slovenia. He traveled frequently. As a child, Bostjan was always curious about his father’s trips, wondering where he would go and what he would bring back. Quite often, they also traveled as a family around Europe, even though there were not many travel opportunities at the time. “I believe this was some kind of seed of a love for travel,” Bostjan says. “But I figured out later that I really enjoy traveling.”
Despite graduating in political science and economics, he traveled extensively around the globe. “That probably gave me the impetus to work in this industry in the future,” he points out.
Foundation of Liberty Adriatic DMC
Liberty Adriatic is a leading Destination Management Company (DMC) rooted in the Adriatic region. Over the past 20 years, it has grown into a trusted regional partner. It is now known for delivering exceptional MICE, which is short for meetings, incentives, congresses, and events, and leisure travel services.
Bostjan began exploring the idea of founding Liberty Adriatic DMC in 2003, and about two years later, it finally materialized. He recalls that when he met Mario Enzberger, Founder and CEO of Liberty International Tourism Group, he felt their chemistry would work well in partnership.
“Our first office was in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and soon after, we realized that the entire Adriatic region offers so much potential,” says Bostjan. So, they decided to expand their operational area and offices. Now, they are present in five countries in the region: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Albania.
Current and Past Challenges
In the beginning, when they were establishing the business, Bostjan faced the usual challenges every entrepreneur encounter, such as whether they would have enough business to survive, enough business to make it happen, and enough to realize his idea.
Now that the company is well-established, the challenges are different. The biggest one is getting the right people on board to build the right team. Bostjan points out that it is because nowadays, more than ever, success is not the result of a single person’s efforts, but it is about teamwork. He believes that a company can only be successful if the right team is in place. “I am very happy to have that, and I believe this is probably the key factor in a company’s success,” he says.
A Steady, Stable Growth
Under Bostjan’s leadership, Liberty Adriatic DMC has seen steady growth. He is someone who believes in taking steady and secure steps instead of taking heavy risks. According to him, stable growth is the best and most successful form of growth.
Also, he points out that, unfortunately, the tourism industry is always the first to be affected by almost everything, whether it is a political situation, a natural catastrophe, or an economic crisis. “When something happens, the business goes down,” he says.
In these 22 years, Bostjan has seen almost everything that could affect the tourism industry. For example, the economic crash in 2008, political situations around the globe, and most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected them the most. The pandemic hit them the hardest for a couple of years. It would have put them out of business as well. “But we rose again like a phoenix from the ashes,” Bostjan says.
“Only now are we are coming back,” he adds. “We are now surpassing the results of 2019, but those three years are lost.”
Two Roles and Two Different Functions
Chief Executive Officer at Liberty Adriatic DMC & Chief Sustainability Officer at Liberty International Tourism Group are two different functions, according to Bostjan. As the CEO of Liberty Adriatic, he runs the company, achieves results, and develops the company in a profitable way.
Liberty International Tourism Group is set to celebrate its 35 years of existence in 2026. It has close to 60 offices across the world. As Boštjan was the first to initiate sustainable activities within Liberty Adriatic, it eventually led him to take on the role of Chief Sustainability Officer for the whole group.
“Sometimes it is a little bit difficult, because the pace of our business life is extremely high,” Bostjan says. “I wish I could probably do much more at the level of sustainability as Chief Sustainability Officer of the whole group.”
Bostjan’s main preoccupation is Liberty Adriatic, as that is where he is the CEO. However, according to him, now that he has a good team, he has started to give certain responsibilities to lower levels. He feels that this will definitely help him focus more on the position of Chief Sustainability Officer for the whole group. “That is actually my aim because sustainability is something that I really like,” Bostjan says. “I really believe in it, and I think it is something that should and will be developed much more in the future.”
A Typical Day of a Dynamic Leader
Bostjan is an early riser. He wakes up around 5:30 a.m. and takes his dog out for a walk. He lives about 10 minutes from his office in downtown, and just five minutes from the forest. “On my morning walk, I’m really blessed with fresh air, even wildlife. That is how I start my day,” he says.
Around 7 a.m., he heads toward the office, where he usually spends nine hours a day, sometimes even more. In the afternoon, he returns home to enjoy family time. “I have a wife and two kids, and in evenings, we gather together to discuss how the day went,” he adds.
Valuable Moments and Great Achievements
Bostjan has a string of achievements to his name. But, to him, what matters more is the memorable, valuable experience. For example, in 2015, he and his team went to a company that employed persons with disabilities. They produced certain marketing and promotional material. “It was, for me and also for the majority of my team, probably the first time that we entered that kind of environment,” Bostjan says. “And we had a fantastic afternoon with those persons with disabilities.” In the afternoon, he recalls playing some games with balls, and then they also had a pizza party. “I would not call this a real achievement, but it stayed in my heart as one of the most memorable activities we did as a company in a sustainable way,” Bostjan says.
He is also proud of what they did recently. It involved supporting certain activities for the preservation of nature. He points out there is a non-governmental and non-profit institution in Slovenia called YouSea which focuses on the preservation of the Slovenian sea and biodiversity. “It is a family idea that a father brought up probably 25 or more years ago and was never realized because of local law,” Bostjan says. The daughter and son, a couple of years ago, managed to find a way to put an artificial reef in the Slovenian sea in order to create a proper environment to extend and empower the biodiversity of the local species. “And now, after two years, this is a huge success,” Bostjan says. He and his team are regularly contributing financially because new structures have to be put in place.
“When you see that something real is coming up, it makes you happy,” Bostjan says. For him, what is really important and where he is interested in providing support is when he sees a meaningful story behind it.
Bostjan also talks about Liberty initiative in Africa, a Secluded Africa Wildlife and Community Trust based in Kenya. It’s a charity foundation dedicated to the promotion of environmental protection, improvement, and conservation for the benefit of the communities. Part of the funds is also going for the natural conservation, particularly in the Tsavo National Park in Kenya, where herds of elephants are growing due to the support on the ground.
Planning for the Future
For Liberty Adriatic, Bostjan and his team are planning to further develop their product lines. This is something they are already working on, according to him.
Bostjan intends to develop more sustainable programs in the future. “I see that clients are requesting it more and more, but there is still a certain gap between requesting it and actually making a decision for it,” he says. So, the development of more sustainable programs will definitely be one of the future tasks they would like to pursue.
“And we definitely are not looking into the development of a company that would be based on any mass tourism,” Bostjan points out. “This is something we will never go for, and of course, we personally believe that we also need to offer more personal experiences, because in the future, this is what clients are going to look for more and more.”
Bostjan explains that the social part of human life is decreasing, which is why he believes that personal experiences will play quite a big role in the future.
Message to Aspiring Leaders
“As much as economic development is important for human beings, it’s not everything about money,” Bostjan tells aspiring leaders. In his message, he underscores the need to develop their societies and create jobs.
“We can only create jobs when there is profit, but put a bit of that profit into something that will benefit humankind in the future,” Bostjan says. “And this is what sustainability definitely shows and is trying to promote.”
Still, Plenty of Dreams to Achieve!
Bostjan believes that a person without dreams will become stagnant. According to him, one always needs to have dreams and goals for the future. So, he still has plenty of dreams to achieve.
He explains that his goals and dreams are primarily business-related. It involves constantly developing the company to a higher level, creating a business that is recognized and considered a premium brand. In terms of sustainability, one of his top goals is to bring more of their offices into alignment and streamline sustainability practices throughout the company. He explains, “We have around 60 companies worldwide, and a company based in India may have different ideas and visions compared to one based in Spain, especially regarding sustainability. That is where I believe there is still a lot of work for us to do as a company.”
