How This 5-Bubble Hotel in Italy Uses Tripadvisor to Grow Their Business

Tucked into Rome’s historic center, or centro storico, the elegant Hotel Barocco overlooks one of the most iconic spots in the city — Bernini’s Barberini Fountain. Here you can step back in time and retreat to one of the hotel’s luxurious 37 rooms. This 5.0-bubble, Traveler’s Choice hotel is ranked in the top 5 of more than 1000 hotels in Rome.

Revenue Manager Fabio Altobelli is no stranger to paying attention to the details. It’s the small but meaningful gestures of hospitality, after all, that makes the Hotel Barocco one of the best in the city. But being a hospitality pro is one thing. When it came to their online presence, Altobelli wasn’t sure how to balance growing their business and advertising online with maintaining the charm and character of the hotel.

“Tripadvisor’s users are more qualified than other platforms,” says Altobelli. “Our decision to partner with Tripadvisor really paid off.”

“As a Tripadvisor user, I already knew that the platform was revolutionary,” says Altobelli. “Through our affiliation with Tripadvisor, we can showcase the hard work we do every day to make our guests’ experience memorable and help grow our business in awareness and reputation. Tripadvisor has become one of our biggest platforms for us.”

Hotel Barocco chose to partner with Tripadvisor as a way to drive revenue with two Tripadvisor products: Sponsored Placements and Business Advantage. Here’s how:

Generating buzz with Sponsored Placements

First, Hotel Barocco uses Sponsored Placements to gain additional exposure as travelers search for hotels in Rome.

“We love the opportunity to boost our brand and generate buzz,” says Altobelli. “This is such an important way to gain market share against our competitors.”

While the hotel is already one of the top-ranked properties in the city, it takes multiple touchpoints for a traveler to go from thinking about where to stay to booking your hotel specifically. Altobelli says:

“The overexposure offered by the privileged positioning with Sponsored Ads allows us not only to obtain more bookings, but also to increase our ADR substantially. After activating Sponsored Ads, our revenue has grown month over month.”

Showcasing their property with Business Advantage

Once Sponsored Placements draws travelers onto their hotel detail page, Altobelli and his team use Business Advantage to make a great first impression, influence guests to book directly, and drive that traffic to the Hotel Barocco website.

With Business Advantage, Hotel Barocco can:

• Upload professional photos and videos, with the option to curate a video slideshow of the best reviews and photos called Storyboard.
• Use Direct Links to add the hotel website and contact information onto hotel detail pages to make it easy for guests to get in touch and book directly.
• Run up to three Special Offers designed to get guests excited about your property and encourage direct booking.
• Automatically pin a Favorite Review that highlights the best of the property so travelers can get a sense of the hotel from a previous guest.

“Activating Business Advantage has increased our visibility and direct revenue month over month,” Altobelli says. “It’s a great opportunity to showcase our hotel, special offers, and make sure travelers can book with us directly.”

Partnering with Tripadvisor to grow Hotel Barocco

Delivering high-quality hospitality is what gets Altobelli and his team to work every day. According to him, that’s the “easy” part. What’s harder is making sure travelers from around the globe — with no knowledge of the city neighborhoods or where to go — can find and book the hotel easily.

Partnering with Tripadvisor helps Hotel Barocco showcase its impressive hospitality and gain more valuable exposure. By using Sponsored Placements and Business Advantage, their team has:

• Increased global traffic to the hotel website, with Tripadvisor representing 12% of all global website traffic
• Increased global bookings, including more direct bookings. Tripadvisor represents 10% of all direct revenue.
• Increased engagement on their website, halving bounce rate from Tripadvisor traffic vs. traffic from other platforms.
• Increased page per view to 4.38 from their 3.75 average, meaning visitors who did come to their hotel website were much more engaged by staying longer and visiting more pages with their offerings.

“Tripadvisor’s users are more qualified than other platforms,” says Altobelli. “Our decision to partner with Tripadvisor really paid off.”