Locanda Dell' Artista Receives TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Award for 2017

Tuscany, Italy, March 30, 2017 --(PR.com)-- TripAdvisor, the world’s largest reviews website, announced their prestigious Travelers' Choice Award for 2017, and Locanda dell’ Artista is deemed best B&B / Inn in Tuscany and 11th best in the World. Millions of reviews were factored in the creation of the ranking.

Locanda dell’ Artista is a boutique country inn located in the heart of Tuscany, Italy, near the ancient walled castle cities of San Gimignano, Poggibonsi, and Colle Val d’Elsa. Their luxury facilities provide a convenient location for their guests to tour all of the legendary beauty of the Tuscany region.

Multiple Oscar nominated film producer Baker Bloodworth and Cristian Rovetta, owner of a fashion accessory business in Bergamo, saw that there was not a comparable elegant boutique hotel within 20 miles of historic San Gimignano, Tuscany, and seized the opportunity to create their Locanda dell’ Artista. Now after 5 years and multiple facility expansions, this recognition by TripAdvisor comes at a good time for them.

When asked about receiving the award, Bloodworth said, “Cristian, myself, and our staff are humbled and proud to receive this award for the second time, because we dedicate all our passion and energy to the well-being of our guests. It’s the attention to every detail and warmth of our staff that sets Locanda dell’ Artista above the competition. Our many returning guests confirm that their stay at Locanda dell’ Artista was the best part of their holiday in Italy. We’re really proud of that.” He also stated: “Our goal at Locanda dell’ Artista is to give each and every guest the same warm welcome and personal attention to ensure their holiday in Tuscany is as authentic and wonderful as it can be, and this vote of confidence by travelers worldwide on TripAdvisor confirms that what we are doing is right.”

TripAdvisor, headquartered in Massachusetts, USA, claims to be the largest travel site in the world, with more than 60 million members and over 170 million reviews and opinions of hotels, restaurants, attractions and other travel-related businesses. The site is helpful to hotels like Locanda dell’ Artista in a variety of ways as they are one of the most highly trafficked sites for hotels and for reviews and information.

In its latest report, “Luxury Hotels: Regional Search Strategies,” New York-based brand consultancy L2 suggests upper upscale and luxury hotel brands should be looking to TripAdvisor more often than they are now.

TripAdvisor dominates in both SEO (organic searches) and SEM (paid searches) for accommodations online. L2 tested out 452 non-branded search terms during the month of January and found that TripAdvisor was on the first page for 99% of organic search results and 72% or paid search results on Google. TripAdvisor also occupies 7% of all organic real estate in brand term search, even when competing against the brand’s own sites (63%) and social media properties (16%). Within those brand term searches, these brands currently have the top TripAdvisor visibility: Jumeirah; Anantara; Hilton; Sofitel; and Omni Hotels & Resorts.

Hotels can partner with TripAdvisor in a number of ways, one being a strategic Instant Booking partnership, as Marriott has done. As it would with an Online Travel Agent (OTA), Marriott pays a commission to TripAdvisor for each room booked via the site’s Instant Booking feature, and L2’s report states this “gives Marriott a fighting chance against OTAs on the site.”

Hotels also improve their visibility within TripAdvisor by using popular keywords in descriptions for specific markets, investing in content for their property page, and improving guest review response rate and time spent on the platform. Their public awards essentially recognize excellence in the use of these strategies.

Hotels like Locanda dell’ Artista who are successful with Tripadvisor, will be able to take advantage of the new upcoming TripAdvisor Connect service later this year: a tool that will allow independent hotels to enjoy the same visibility on TripAdvisor as the big hotel chains and online agencies and significantly increase the number of direct bookings. With TripAdvisor Connect Locanda dell’ Artista will also have tools to analyze sales and will be able to send scheduled emails to their customers once they have left the establishment. Like this, they can encourage customers to write comments on Tripadvisor and improve their position in the ranking of hotels in their destination.

With this new service, TripAdvisor intends to give more chances to small hotels which demanded to have the same opportunities to receive direct bookings than the big chains. “Now they can have the same visibility and control all their information from their management panel” explains Julio Bruno, vice president of Global Sales and TripAdvisor for Business.

Receiving this lofty recognition from TripAdvisor serves as a powerful reminder to Locanda dell’ Artista (www.locandadellartista.com) that the bar is set high. Following their example, every hotel should remember that each new guest is as important as the last.