After Bartolini, it will now be the Sadler and Sultano’s turn. At a time when the hotel industry is just waiting for the green light to get back into full swing, the list of top chefs who have decided to establish partnerships with large hotel chains is set to grow. If in the past it was the turn of big names such as Carlo Cracco, invited to Moscow with the Ovo of the Lotte hotel, and the Cerea family of Da Vittorio (with the consultancy of Gallia in Milan), in the coming months it will be Enrico Bartolini's turn to "sign" the catering of Milano Verticale, the new hotel by Una Esperienze (Una Group, part of Unipol) located in the Porta Nuova-Garibaldi area. Next in line will be two other big Michelin-starred names: Claudio Sadler (who from June will have his own gourmet restaurant inside the Baglioni Resort Puntalandia in the protected Tavolara marine area) and Ciccio Sultano, the two-Michelin-starred chef at the Duomo in Ragusa Ibla, who from September will open his own restaurant inside the first Marriott International's W Hotel.

The added attraction of having an 'in-house' high-end restaurant will not, however, be the only change for the hotels of the post-Covid era: all of them will most likely be more technological and attentive to the needs of the individual customer, thus marking an acceleration of certain trends already underway in recent years. The confirmation emerges from a study promoted by the Italian School of Hospitality and edited by CDP and TH Resorts, according to which the hotel sector is undergoing deep technological innovation. Even now, companies with ERP (enterprise resource planning) management systems grew from 11% in 2010 to 29% in 2017, while those with CRM (customer relationship management), from 37% to 48% in the same period. The report points out that while these figures demonstrate the growing importance of digital technology for hotels, they are not enough to bridge the gap with other European countries. In 2016, only 10% of Italian companies in the sector were equipped with a hotel management software system, compared to 15% in France, 20% in Spain and 32% in the United Kingdom.