The article deals with the significance of the quest for excellence and a socially responsible approach in planning for sustainable tourism. Research and experience show that tourism organisations need to search for alternative sources and innovative elements in order to improve their competitiveness. This can be done by forming a social-relationship-network in the field of tourism, which is an important factor in creating added value and innovation. There has to be a continuous pursuit of excellence and a socially responsible approach, starting from the idea, via development, and right through to project implementation. One of the beneficial methodologies for developing and expanding a level of tourism which is sustainable and enhances the totality of local and regional environments is a multi-stakeholder approach. The second part of this paper presents a case-study of "Heritage trails through Dolenjska and Bela krajina in South East Slovenia", in which sustainable rural development1 was pursued by using an integrated approach in terms of start-up, implementation and development. This initiative was supported by and benefitted from the notion of having a core of multiple stakeholders