By Claudia Cencini
Face to face with Laura Santarelli, founder and manager of Hotel Design Solutions, a service and representation company operating in the luxury hotel sector.
Frequent travelers, and others, know how important it is to feel at home in a hotel room. Unfortunately, however, this is not always the case, whether due to a lack of attention and sensitivity on the part of the staff or the anachronism of certain hoteliers.
A squeaky bed, thin walls that let noise through, noise from the street, and unbreathable air are factors that, more than you might imagine, can ruin a business trip or a vacation. And what about the welcome from the staff, which may in turn be affected by a tense atmosphere or mediocre environmental conditions? In short, paying to feel uncomfortable is not an option, thank you very much.
Today, however, something is changing even in the hotel sector, which is more attentive to detail and customer satisfaction, because a good night’s sleep in a hotel depends not only on the quality of the mattress, important as it is, but also on feeling welcomed and pampered from the moment you arrive in a tastefully furnished environment equipped with state-of-the-art comforts and services.
Sometimes, creative and original solutions are all it takes to create an enveloping atmosphere for an experience away from home, transforming an ordinary stay into a sensory journey that will remain etched in your memory.
The challenge of wellness in hotels
Unlike in the past, when hotels were standardized and inattentive to individual needs, it is now possible to put together a package of personalized services that can meet the increasingly high demands of the typical customer, thanks to new interior design techniques and marketing strategies that improve the quality of the location and the hotel stay, from small family-run hotels to luxury resorts.
Attention to detail and the offer of functional and attractive optional extras can help to make the stay enjoyable, putting everyone at ease right from the start. Nowadays, we know how important it is to satisfy customers in order to benefit from positive feedback, both through word of mouth and on social media. Nowadays, it is impossible to ignore the tone of reviews which, rightly or wrongly, are the litmus test for choosing a hotel. Hands up anyone who doesn’t read the comments on online booking sites before choosing a hotel. Let’s not forget, however, that behind every facade, whether sober or flashy, there is always teamwork that is not visible, but which relies on professionals and consultants with a wealth of expertise and a predisposition to interact with others in an empathetic and participatory manner. Laura Santarelli is one of them.
The courage to get back in the game
Laura Santarelli, founder and manager of Hotel Design Solutions, is an Umbrian home designer and licensed sales agent who has staked her career on the high-end hotel sector. On the eve of her company’s tenth anniversary, she can say she has achieved her goals and is ready for new challenges.
We meet her in her studio-atelier at Via Indipendenza 8, in the heart of the Festival city. Laura is open and cheerful, and the enthusiasm with which she speaks and the light in her eyes tell us that she loves her work. A job that has grown over the years, even beyond her expectations, thanks to the talent, passion, and charisma of this self-made woman who believes in herself and in people. Her weapon is the smile of someone who knows what she wants. Behind her lies a tough personal story, which began long ago and has made her the woman she is today:
“My work did not come about by chance,” says the young entrepreneur. “For several years, I worked outside Spoleto in a large company in the hotel contract sector, where I had reached a position that excluded new goals. I was uninspired, so I felt the need to give up everything and start from scratch.”
She didn’t think twice about quitting her job and, like a good Spoleto native, she returned home to start again in her own land, but with an eye on the global market, thanks to the connectivity and network of relationships she had built up over the years.
A dream come true
A gamble? Perhaps, but a calculated one if you consider that Laura did not reinvent herself from scratch, but embarked on her new entrepreneurial adventure with courage and foresight, drawing on the skills she had previously acquired.
Her knowledge base expanded during Covid, when, instead of freezing her business, which had been blocked by the pandemic, Laura seized this blackout as an opportunity to stop and reflect on how to expand her knowledge: “I’m someone who always sees the glass as half full,” she admits, “and the stop imposed by Covid gave me the assist to go back to making plans and studying new development prospects for my business. What’s more, having a young child, the need to stop made me more present as a mother at a crucial time in my child’s growth.”
Thanks to this new awareness, Hotel Design Solutions has opened its doors to new operational chains, which have raised the quantitative and qualitative bar for the Spoleto-based company, allowing it to take off well beyond the confines of its home turf, also thanks to the expansion of its range of offerings based on diversification.
Laura is now a well-established name in the sector. It is no coincidence that she is the exclusive representative for central Italy of VDA-Telkonet, one of the leading companies operating in the field of home automation on a national and international scale. Among other collaborations, she boasts a partnership with Cisa as a representative of electronic handles in the access management sector. “What could be more practical than opening a door without the old bunch of keys?” she remarks.
In the future, she does not rule out joining other networks, but now it is up to her to decide. What is certain is that her every move is carefully calibrated and dictated by the need to satisfy those in front of her.
Inside the world of Hotel Design Solutions
But let’s find out more from Santarelli herself about what Hotel Design Solutions is all about and what it offers in terms of originality and practicality.
“I consider myself a consultant who is very attentive to relationships, able to understand the personality of the person I am talking to, thus positioning my company as a link between supply and demand for services in the hotel industry, from the local area where we have contracts to international markets that are attracted to Italian-made products.”
In order to be present and get her message across in the best possible way, Laura puts herself out there, traveling extensively to promote the products in the catalogs of the companies she represents.
“I believe it is essential to travel because I want to see firsthand the realities with which I interact, the environments that I am going to transform or provide services to. The choice of materials, color combinations, and types of fabrics is fundamental, as is the provision of the latest generation of devices without distorting the structures, but enriching them with new tools in step with the times.”
Thanks to its network of selected suppliers, the Umbrian company is now able to offer product and service packages that are the result of carefully crafted business plans agreed upon with clients.
Competition and expertise: the keys to success
The message that Laura Santarelli conveys through her work is destined to spread, overcoming the skepticism of those who remain anchored to old ways, lacking the drive for renewal that is fundamental to the development of any innovative and modern business.
She is not afraid of competition. “It’s welcome,” she confirms, “it’s the spice of business, a stimulus to grow and compete with even the best competitors, as long as it is conducted in a fair and respectful manner.”
Laura is an example of how to achieve success by doing what you love with ethics and professionalism. The secret is to train, work hard, and, above all, believe in yourself, as she did by carving out her space in a constantly growing global market that rewards creativity, merit, and even a touch of visionary madness.
Info: Hotel Design Solutions srl, Via Indipendenza 8, Spoleto (PG) / www.hoteldesignsolutions.it / Tel. 346 748 9705
