Ostello di Bergamo - Like a phoenix rising from the ashes: the unstoppable growth of reviews

The Bergamo Hostel was founded at the beginning of the ‘70s and was among the first hostels in Italy, perhaps also in Europe. For years, the hostel was a reference point for young tourism. The hostel underwent a transformation at the beginning of the ‘90s with a deep restructuring that led it to be, once again, among the most innovative accommodations in Italy and in Europe, with high quality standards. In the same period it became part of the AIG - Hostelling International
network. In 2016, the company management changed, as did the strategic participation within the national and global networks. Thereafter, the partnership with Travel Appeal began.

The situation was complex. The online presence and brand reputation were plummeting. This greatly affected turnover, which recorded continuous drops in the face of fixed costs (employees, rent, etc.). On Booking.com, they had a rating of 7.3/10. They had a 3/5 rating on TripAdvisor and were in a
bad position - 40th place out of 60 hotel accommodations in the city of Bergamo. On other channels they also had low
ratings: Hostelworld, second OTA for sales, was at 7.6/10;

Moreover, there was no regular updating on social media, the website was old and had very high and unnecessary maintenance costs

The Booking Engine was though an OTA and therefore all our direct bookings actually ended up on a third-party site.

Fans of Reputation

Requesting a product like Travel Appeal from upper management was not easy, because it may be difficult to grasp the need for such an innovative product. Overcoming the initial perplexities, management has understood the importance of
a tool that allows you to constantly monitor the sentiment and brand reputation of your company, to the point that today, some of the executives are highly attentive and passionate in using the Dashboard.

Managing social reviews and feedback from a single platform has allowed the management to greatly reduce the time spent online, while maintaining a high level of attention.