The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is lending €15 million to the owner of Terme Čatež — Slovenia’s biggest natural thermal destination — to fund a major upgrade of the resort’s facilities and push it toward a greener, more energy-efficient operation, the bank said. The deal marks the EBRD’s first tourism investment in Slovenia and its first inland tourism project across the broader Adriatic region.
Terme Čatež is a well-established, family-oriented leisure complex that draws visitors year-round, and the financing is designed to keep it competitive while cutting its environmental footprint. The investment covers hotel refurbishment, water treatment and wastewater management upgrades, and targeted energy efficiency improvements — changes that should make the resort more resilient to rising operational costs and increasingly unpredictable climate conditions.
“This project reflects the Bank’s confidence in Slovenia’s strong potential to further diversify and upgrade its tourism offering,” said Vlaho Kojakovic, Director of Real Estate at the EBRD. Beyond the infrastructure work, the project has a people dimension too: Terme Čatež will run workforce training and skills development programmes in partnership with local educational institutions, aimed at raising service standards and building long-term capacity in the sector.
The EBRD also sees the investment as a nudge toward more sustainable tourism patterns — strengthening domestic and regional travel rather than depending on long-haul visitors, and helping Slovenia move toward lower-carbon tourism models overall. Improvements to on-site groundwater pumping and wastewater systems will contribute to more efficient use of natural resources at scale.
Since entering Slovenia, the EBRD has invested over €1.6 billion across 116 projects in the country, spanning both public and private sectors.