Hotiday: the hospitality revolution begins with a hotel room

Imagine a hotel in Italy during the holiday season.

Whether it’s by the sea, in the mountains, or in the heart of a historic city, you should know that on average, 30% of the hotel you're imagining remains unoccupied. And this means hoteliers are missing out on a third of their potential earnings.

Travel is one of the most enriching experiences one can have, yet often travel experiences fall short, marred by unmet expectations regarding accommodations.

Now, these two issues share a common solution called Hotiday.

Founded by Federico Brunelli, Federico Di Carlo, and Vittorio Gargiulo, Hotiday is the first room collection designed for modern travellers eager to experience meaningful journeys. Their rooms are placed in selected hotel areas and hosted by the best hoteliers. Strategic locations, digital consierge always available and additional services and accessories, tailored to the needs of digital natives. Hotiday ensures that what guests see during booking is exactly what they get, enhancing their journeys with a variety of modern services and features. Additionally, the startup acts as a partner for more than 50 hoteliers as of now, aiding them in transitioning towards more innovative, effective, and efficient management of their facilities and services.

To learn more about how Hotiday operates and how it is revolutionizing a sector crucial to not only the Italian economy but beyond, we interviewed Federico Brunelli, co-founder of Hotiday. 

Watch the video interview!

Hotiday is considered the first collection of hotel rooms. Could you delve into this concept and explain how it redefines traditional hotel stays? What unique features does your platform offer to both hoteliers and guests?

Hotiday creates unique room collections hosted by the best hoteliers to welcome modern travelers eager to experience meaningful journeys.

Our mission is to reshape the Hospitality industry by becoming the no-brainer solution for our guests and hospitality partners worldwide.

We redefine the travel industry by creating dedicated areas to our guests inside the best local hotels, by providing the smart travellers with meaningful experiences that suit their needs. 

At the same time, Hotiday is the enabler to our hotel partners towards facing the challenges and all the amazing opportunities of the modern advancement in technology.

What innovative strategies has Hotiday implemented that distinguish it from conventional options? Could you share insights on how these innovations are received by both the hospitality industry and the travelers themselves?

Hotiday is revolutionizing the industry with an innovative business model. We target groups of rooms that hoteliers struggle to fill during their opening period and we acquire them for a long period of time, creating room areas inside the best properties in Italy and abroad. In this way we help hoteliers both in room inventory management and guide them through the revolution of the sector given by technology and AI. 

We offer our guests hotel rooms in all the best locations, together with a digital concierge to book activities, restaurants, experiences and much more; a 24/7 AI Whatsapp assistance, and we certify all our rooms, meaning that what you see is what you get and our rooms are tested by our team to ensure the best possible room experience. We use technology and all feedback collected becoming a data-driven modern company in the hospitality industry. Both travelers and hoteliers are responding positively to our product, as we are gathering very positive feedback in terms of online reviews, while our hotel partners are becoming much more our main sponsors in promoting our vision and our values to fellow hoteliers, which really shows us the positive feedback from the market.

The travel and hospitality sector is crowded with competitors. Why did you decide to build a startup in this particular market?

We all know that everybody wants to travel, but the real challenge is how you travel and what you really get from your journey. It happens too often that there are huge promises that are not met by the service provided. 

Our objective is to ensure our guests that whatever they see while they are booking is the exact same room they will live in and to enrich their journeys with all different sorts of modern services and features. 

We also noticed there was a lack of innovation for hoteliers, as they were often overwhelmed by offers and products tied to an old-fashioned way of room management. We want to be the perfect partner for innovation, revenue optimization and smart management of their properties. 

What is the greatest achievement Hotiday has accomplished so far, and what are your immediate goals moving forward?

 I believe that our greatest achievements so far have been:

• The more than 10.000 guests hosted in our room collections, who showed their appreciation of our experience by leaving an average score of more than 8.5 / 10 on the most important travel platforms

• We have also received fundings and the trust from people and companies that show us that we have a product of high value and we are building a healthy and profitable company

We are looking forward to scale our business model as fast as possible, to replicate worldwide what we’ve made bulletproof in the first 50 hotels we are working with at the moment.

Founding and running a startup is challenging. What are three essential 'Do's and three critical 'Don’ts' you've learned from your journey that you'd advise other entrepreneurs to consider?

Do’s:

1-   Be always ready to get your hands dirty and keep your motivation high

2-   Validate your insights with a data-driven and lean approach

3-   People are key: trust your teammates and be there for them as they are for you

 Don’t’s:

1-   Don’t be rigid on your ideas and always listen to people’s feedbacks and opinion

2-   Don’t fall in love with the solution but with the problem

3-   Don’t focus only on short-term tactics: real change comes one “hotel” at a time