On October 3, 2019, the CHS AlpAdria & Eastern Europe chapter hosted our 1st Annual Rome Lodging Outlook at the St. Regis Rome.

Jonathan Spada’10 kicked off the event with a welcome to our guests, explained who is CHS and opportunities for becoming a member (as it turned out one of the guests just completed her 4 PDP courses in July!), as well as a quick shout out about our Hospitality Symposium that we’re putting together for the EMEA meeting next April.

Up next, Giorgio Palmucci, President of ENIT (Italy’s national tourism board, responsible for promoting Italian tourism worldwide) gave a welcome and a brief overview of the state-of-the-industry at the moment.

Sarah Diugnan of STR then gave the keynote presentation of market data and forecast, indicating a bright future for Rome, but especially for other markets like Naples, Palermo, and Puglia. Venice forecast, on the other hand, is less bright due to a drop in demand and the cruise ship controversy.

Following Sarah, we invited a panel to discuss the outlook qualitatively. The panel was moderated by Roberto Necci, Chairman of Necci Hotels and President of Centro Studi Federalberghi Roma, and included Giuseppe de Martino, GM of the St. Regis Rome; Gianni di Fede, VP Total Revenue Management EMEA at Radisson Hotel Group; Palmiro Noschese, local hotelier and developer; Sabrina Fragiacomo, owner at Extramilevent; and Rocco Lomazzi, Co-Founder of Sweet Guest.

The nature of the panel offered practical information for hoteliers in the audience to apply in their own hotels for 2020.

The audience was made up of about 40 local hoteliers and managers, representing the top properties in Rome.

A special thanks to Palmiro Noschese ’19 and Luca Cerretani ’09 who helped organize the event. We really appreciated the support from fellow chapter presidents and VPs, and we’re very satisfied with the result for this inaugural event.

Rome Lodging Outlook – October 2019