by “Rome is now the city of luxury hotels,” said Giuseppe Botrugno as he served his loyal crowd of lunchtime customers, mostly office workers who pile into the humble bar and reasonably priced restaurant, without any Roman nonsense fare.
“There’s one opposite, one around the corner, and another planned next door to that one,” Botrugno, who with his brother runs Bar San Marcello on Via di San Marcello, a narrow street near the Trevi fountain, told for more than two decades.
They have seen many changes in the neighborhood, most recently the boom in five star hotels.
In front of the bar is Palazzo Salviati Cesi Mellini, a 15th-century building with a Unesco-listed facade that now houses the fine dining Six Senses as the first location in Italy for the international chain. In another ancient complex around the corner is Umiltà 36, a Shedir Collection hotel. Down the road from there, a building that was until Friday the headquarters of Rome’s foreign press association is being vacated to make way for another five-star offering in the neighborhood.
On the one hand, Botrugno is happy that Palazzo Salviati Cesi Mellini, which was abandoned for years, has come back to life. “It gives the city some luster,” he said. On the other hand, he wonders if such luxury would diminish the spirit of the eternal city. “The move in this direction is inevitable, because money is what matters today,” he said.
Rome’s leaders are certainly making the most of it. The Italian capital has come second only to London for attracting the world’s best luxury hotels in 2023, according to a report by Luxury Travel Intelligence. A hotel in Bulgaria opened with a star-studded party in June last year, and 13 more are on the way before 2026. Among them is the Four Seasons hotel, a brand partly owned by Bill Gates, which will be housed in a period building the Renaissance. close to the Vatican, and the Nobu Hotel Roma on Via Veneto supported by Robert De Niro.
After a period of negative press, mainly due to its waste management woes, the city’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, said the influx of luxury hotels had made Rome “attractive again”.
Maurizio Veloccia, Rome’s urban planning consultant, said that has not been the case since the 1960s and 70s, when Via Veneto was in the center of the dolce vitaif there was so much interest in the city from the luxury sector.
“Rome has always been a city to see at least once in a lifetime, but until recently, compared to Paris and London, it did not attract hotels or visitors of a certain, shall we say, class,” said he.
2023 was a record year for tourism in Rome, with visitor numbers falling in 2019. One working for a luxury hotel said there was a renewed sense among its guests of “wanting to live life to the full”. after the Covid-19 pandemic. Major events such as the Ryder Cup last September and sold-out concerts were a major draw.
“Rome is experiencing an incredible period of rebirth, and especially in high-end tourism,” said Tommaso Tanzilli, general director of the Rome and Lazio unit of the Federalberghi hotel association. “But not only are we closing the gap in luxury hotels but hotels at all levels are doing well.”
However, not everyone welcomes the heavy focus on luxury. Vanna Mannucci, a consultant at the Rome unit of Italia Nostra, a heritage group, said it could push even more residents and small and medium-sized businesses out of the centre. “Without residents, the city dies,” she said. “It will also put pressure on smaller hotels to offer rooms to those who cannot afford to pay €500 a night.”
Her Italia Nostra colleague, Riccardo D’Aquino, expressed concern about changes being made to the city’s historic buildings to accommodate high-end speech, citing the Six Senses, where Roman-style baths were built on the first floor.
“The economic needs are understandable, we cannot survive without tourism,” he said. “What worries me is that this change is not being managed well.”
The luxury entries have also angered small and medium-sized hotel owners, who argue that international investors are being given preferential treatment, such as faster granting of permits. “Although I’ve been trying to update our license for years,” said Steve Brenner, from the Beehive hostel, near Termini station. “It affects us all because we feel that the small hotels are the bread and butter of the city, we collect the tourist taxes for them, but we are treated differently.”
Brenner argued that the city was not equipped to offer the kind of service a five-star guest would want. “We don’t have enough taxis, we don’t have the infrastructure, even down to water and electricity.”
Sergio Franci, owner of Antica Stamperia Trevi, a print shop that has been on Via dell’Umiltà since 1780, welcomed the top hotels but said not enough was being done to preserve Rome’s historic businesses. Mass tourism has taken its toll on the city, and while the litter crisis has eased somewhat in the historic center in recent years, it has remained an issue for the neighborhoods further afield.
“A capital city does not have the dignity that Rome deserves,” said Franci. “Rome needs more than a five-star hotel – it needs a long-term vision.”
