Rome is ready for the return of business travellers with new hotels opening and more planned, reports Paul J Devries.
Spend a day strolling through Rome’s ancient streets and visiting its plethora of monuments and museums, followed by an evening of aperitivo and food on one of its historic piazzas, and it’s easy to see why the city is a magnet for tourists.
Despite Milan’s reputation as the country’s centre of commercial activity, Rome also attracts its fair share of business travellers, ranking higher than its rival as a city for meetings and events. It offers both individual hotels with significant conference facilities (Rome Cavalieri – one of Hilton’s Waldorf Astoria hotels – can host up to 5,500 delegates) and vast spaces suitable for trade fairs or congresses at Fiera Roma or La Nuvola Roma convention centres.
Overall, the City of Seven Hills drew in excess of 10 million international visitors in 2019, making it one of Europe’s most popular destinations. Anticipating the new decade, it was getting ready for an influx of new hotels, with major brands including The Hoxton, Bulgari, Six Senses, and Rosewood set to inject some much-needed new life into the city’s inventory.
Following the pandemic’s inevitable impact on the industry, Rome began to welcome the first tranche of new hotels in the spring of this year. This continued over the summer months, as it celebrated Italy’s victory in both the European football championship and Eurovision. Much more is in store between now and 2023 – here’s a selection of noteworthy recent arrivals and upcoming openings.
NEW
DOUBLETREE BY HILTON ROME MONTI
In April, the seventh Doubletree by Hilton hotel in Italy opened with 133 rooms on Piazza dell’Esquilino in Rione Monti, a short walk from the city’s Termini railway station.
The ground floor public spaces include restaurant Mamalia and MiT Food and Coffee Brewery, which has an outdoor patio. Rooftop cocktail bar Mun has views of the ancient Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore across the piazza.
Hilton will also open the 439-room Hilton Rome Eur La Lama in August 2022, south of the city in the EUR business district. It will have direct access to La Nuvola Roma convention centre, which can host up to 8,000 delegates. It will have seven meeting rooms with a total of 857 sqm event space. The new hotel will also offer an executive lounge, an all-day dining outlet and lobby bar, as well as a 15th floor fine dining restaurant.
THE HOXTON, ROME
Following its continental European additions in Amsterdam and Paris, The Hoxton marked an expansion milestone in May with the brand’s tenth hotel in Rome. Set inside a 1970s building in Parioli, north-east of Villa Borghese, there are 192 rooms ranging from Shoebox to Biggy. They draw inspiration from classic Italian cinema and mid-century Italian design, with the Roomy Terrace category adding outdoor space with garden furniture.
All-day eatery Cugino is run in collaboration with a local restaurant and micro-bakery. There is a large lobby and outdoor terrace, and a cluster of five meeting rooms with communal kitchen. In September, Beverly opened as the hotel’s second restaurant, with a ‘West Coast American’ farm-to-table concept.
The Hoxton is set for further growth as part of the joint venture agreed last year between Ennismore (its parent company) and Accor, the French hotel industry giant. A new entity – also called Ennismore – brings no less than 12 Accor lifestylebrands together, from 25 Hours and Mama Shelter to SO/ and The Hoxton, with 100+ new hotels in the pipeline.
ROOM MATE FILIPPO
Spanish group Room Mate Hotels – brainchild of hotelier Kike Sarasola – opened its fourth Italian hotel in June in the form of Room Mate Filippo. With each hotel in the group built around a specific fictional character, here Filippo is an ‘exhibition curator who researches the history of the Eternal City’.
A short walk from Piazza di Spagna, the hotel’s interiors are by Tomas Alia, inspired by the 1940s and using ‘palm trees as a poetic and inspirational element’. In addition to 30 hotel rooms, there is the choice of 11 Gran Filippo Apartments. Filippo joins existing Italian Room Mate hotels Isabella and Luca (in Florence) and Giulia (in Milan).
MAMA SHELTER
On July 1, Mama Shelter Rome arrived in the city’s Prati district providing 217 rooms, bursting with bold patterns and bright colours, including pale green accent walls in the rooms and canary yellow ceilings in the bathrooms.
It’s the first Italian hotel of the brand (like The Hoxton, part of the Ennismore lifestyle portfolio of Accor), and the first hotel with Mama Baths offering a pool, sauna, steam room, and relaxation areas. A large rooftop terrace has views over Vatican City and Saint Peter’s Basilica.
Mama Shelter is heading to Lisbon and Dubai next.
W ROME
Opening this month, W Rome brings the brand’s signature style to two 19th century buildings on Via Liguria, next to the Spanish Steps.
There are 147 rooms and 15 suites, ranging from entry-level Fabulous to the Extreme WOW suite with a private 140 sqm rooftop terrace. The style is luxurious – light wood floors contrast with red velvet curtains, and dark oak and polished brass cabinets.
Sicilian chef Ciccio Sultano is overseeing the kitchens at the hotel, including in Giano Restaurant, which offers indoor and outdoor seating. The W Living Room is on the ground floor – attractions include a hidden door in the public bathroom that gives access to the hotel’s secret garden, Parlapiano.
The rooftop has a WET Deck with outdoor pool and Otto Rooftop bar and lounge.
SOHO HOUSE ROME
Soho House continued its foray into European capitals with the planned autumn opening of a new ten-storey property in San Lorenzo, offering 49 rooms and 20 long-stay apartments.
In addition to its usual members’ club spaces, there is a deli bar and lounge on the ground floor, a rooftop with bar and pool, a screening room, and health club with gym. The group is working on a property in Milan as part of its European expansion plan.
ANANTARA PALAZZO NAIADI
Anantara, part of Minor Hotels (which includes brands NH and Avani Hotels), is quickly establishing a European footprint through a series of conversions, including Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky in Amsterdam, and New York Palace in Budapest.
In Rome, it is converting Palazzo Naiadi, a 19th-century neoclassical building next to the city’s Termini Station and near the ruins of the Diocletian Baths. There are 238 rooms and suites, some of which are in the Clementino wing, previously the Vatican’s granary. F&B include seasonal dishes on the rooftop terrace, which has an outdoor pool.
COMING SOON
BULGARI ROME
With just six hotels today, Bulgari will nearly double its portfolio over the next few years with openings in several cities, including Paris, Moscow and Tokyo. In Italy, the original Bulgari Milan will get a sister hotel in Bulgari Rome in 2022, inside a 1930s modernist building opposite the Ara Pacis and Mausoleum of Augustus.
The majority of its 100 accommodations – like all other Bulgari hotels designed by Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel – will be suites, and the top floor will feature its Il Ristorante restaurant and The Bulgari Bar.
The brand’s flagship store on Via dei Condotti is a few minutes’ walk away – to celebrate the hotel’s upcoming opening, the jeweller has designed the ‘Bulgari Ospitalita Italiana Necklace’, a choker with ten precious stones representing its first ten hotel destinations.
THE ROME EDITION
Next year will see Marriott’s Edition hotels open in two very different European cities: Rome and Reykjavik – joining recent arrivals in Tokyo, Shanghai and Los Angeles.
The Rome Edition will have 95 rooms and suites in an early 20th century building on Piazza Barberini, designed by Cesare Pascoletti in collaboration with Marcello Piacentini, one of Italy’s most famed architects of Rationalism. F&B will be a focus for the hotel, including a signature restaurant with outdoor space, a Punch Room Bar, and a rooftop terrace. The rooftop will also have a pool.
By 2023, Edition plans to add a second Italian hotel in Milan, while also adding a sister hotel to its Barcelona property in Madrid.
SIX SENSES ROME
Having opened a resort on the northern coast of Ibiza this year, Six Senses Hotels will add Italy to its growing list of European destinations in 2022. Palazzo Salviati Cesi Mellini, an 18th century building on Piazza di San Marcello, midway between the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain, is being refurbished to have 95 rooms and suites. There will be ‘a range of quirky room types’, with interiors by Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola. The ground floor will have a trattoria and bar with open kitchen, and a botanical garden, while the rooftop terrace will have 360-degree views of the city. The Six Senses Spa on the first floor will have treatment rooms, a fitness centre and relaxation areas.
Six Senses is working on hotels in London (the former Whiteleys department store in Bayswater, with 110 rooms) and New York (part of The XI, a set of twisting towers by architect Bjarke Ingels along the High Line). It will also open ski resorts in Switzerland and Austria.
INTERCONTINENTAL ROME AMBASCIATORI PALACE
Having previously managed the Hotel de la Ville (now part of Rocco Forte), IHG Hotels and Resorts will make a return to the Italian capital with its Intercontinental brand when it opens Intercontinental Rome Ambasciatori Palace early next year.
Built in 1900 on Via Veneto to host ambassadors staying in Rome, the property will house 160 contemporary rooms and suites, alongside a range of public areas, including a restaurant, bar and spa.
ROSEWOOD ROME
As part of its rapidly expanding global footprint, Rosewood Hotels is adding a range of European cities to its portfolio, including Madrid, Amsterdam, Munich and Vienna. In Italy, Rosewood Rome will be the brand’s fourth Italian hotel when it opens in 2023, joining the existing Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco in Tuscany, and future openings in Porto Cervo (Sardinia) and Venice.
Occupying three buildings from the early 1900s, the hotel will encompass the former Banca Nazionale del Lavoro on Via
Veneto – like the Rome Edition by architect Marcello Piacentini. BAR Studio will be responsible for the interiors, with a total of 113 rooms and 44 suites.
There will be a contemporary Italian bistro, a lobby bar, and rooftop bar and terrace. The bank’s original vault will be turned into a modern Roman bathhouse, while the brand’s Sense Spa will be on the top floor.
The following year should see the arrival of The Chancery Rosewood, the group’s second London hotel, inside the Eero Saarinen-designed former US Embassy in Mayfair.
ORIENT EXPRESS HOTEL DE LA MINERVE
When Accor launched its Orient Express hotel brand in 2019, a first hotel was set to open a year later inside Bangkok’s ultra-modern pixelated MahaNakhon skyscraper. With interiors by Tristan Auer, it would have been the second incarnation for the hotel portion of the mixed-use building, originally announced as The Bangkok Edition.
With that hotel due to open as The Standard Bangkok instead, Orient Express has set its sights on opening in Rome in 2024. The 17th century Grand Hotel de la Minerve, around the corner from the Pantheon and run by the Billi family for 30 years, will undergo a 20-month transformation to become the first Orient Express hotel in Italy.
CITIZEN M ISOLA TIBERINA
Part of ambitious plans in Italy with a focus on Rome and Milan, the first Citizen M hotel will open in 2023 along the Lungovetere, facing Tiber Island. Converting a 1950s building by architect Eugenio Montuori, the Dutch brand will bring its signature look to 160 compact accommodations and public spaces filled with Vitra furniture.
BRACH ROME
Evok Collection, a small French group with five hotels in Paris and three luxurious private chalets in Courchevel 1850, is branching out to Italy and Spain with a number of new openings. Following its collaboration with Philippe Starck on Brach Paris – inside a former postal sorting centre in the 16th arrondissement – it will work with the designer to open Brach Rome in 2023.
Steps from the historic Piazza del Popolo, the hotel will have just 62 rooms and suites, a signature restaurant, rooftop, and a fitness club with a 25-metre pool.
Brach Rome will be the third Brach hotel when it opens, with another property in Madrid due next year. Meanwhile, its Nolinski brand is also expanding, with the characterful Nolinski Paris set to get a sister hotel in Venice.
NHOW ROME
Alongside the conversion of Palazzo Naiadi into an Anantara Hotel, Minor Hotels is also working on turning the existing NH Collection Vittorio Veneto, inside a 1968 modernist building on Via Veneto, into Nhow Rome. An opening date for the hotel, ‘where old and new not only coexist but crash into each other with full speed’, is not yet announced.
CORINTHIA HOTEL ROME
Corinthia Hotels will redevelop the former seat of the Central Bank of Italy, on Piazza del Parlamento, into a luxury hotel set to open in the first half of 2023. Details on the number of rooms and suites are to be confirmed, but they will wrap around a central garden. There will be restaurants and bars, a spa, and a rooftop.
Additional hotels are in progress in cities ranging from Brussels to Bucharest, alongside the conversion of the former Surrey Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side into Corinthia New York, its first hotel in the Americas.
