I studied the best hotels in the world.Then I built one.I have run it for eight years.

What to do now

If you are thinking about a trip, even a vague one, even six months away: leave your email below and I will get back to you for a twenty minute conversation. There is nothing to decide and nothing to pay.

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The method

How I read a hotel

A hotel is not judged by its photographs. It is judged by the people who work there. The four things I check for you are the four I check here every morning, from behind the desk.

1. Who is at the desk. I ask how many years they have been there. The answer says more than the declared category.
2. Whether the faces come back. Next season you find the same people, or you do not. No hotel writes that in its own presentation.
3. Who can say yes. If nobody on the floor decides anything without asking upstairs, by the fifth day you feel it.
4. What happens when something goes wrong. The level of a place is not visible on arrival. It is visible there.

It is the part photographs never tell you, and the part that stays with you.

This way of looking has a name and a score. I turned it into a tool: 23 questions about observable facts, no reviews, a score from 0 to 100. Three minutes, and you can measure the last hotel you slept in yourself. Try the Ferro Index.

Who is writing

I founded Luxury Camp at Union Lido in 2018 and I have run it ever since. Twenty open air suites, around six hundred families a year from Germany, Austria, the United States, the Emirates and China.

Before designing it I spent years inside other people’s properties. Dubai, Las Vegas, Shanghai. Research into how the best hotels in the world are actually run, not into how they are photographed.

I said it to Italiabsolutely on 1 September 2022, before it became a sales argument: «For Luxury Camp we did years of market research into the world's best 5-star superior to 7-star hotels from Dubai to Las Vegas to Shanghai, to which we added our personal Italian warmth and style».

My uncle, Roberto Senigaglia, was Concierge Clefs d’Or at the Belmond Hotel Cipriani in Venice for thirty years. What stayed with me is not the famous guests. It is that he treated a stranger asking for directions exactly as he treated a guest of the Cipriani.

Property opened in 2018 · 20 open air suites · around 600 families a year · season from April to September

What happens when you write

1. The Luxury Camp at Union Lido team answers, usually the same day. Every enquiry crosses my desk.
2. Twenty minutes of conversation, whenever it suits you. Nothing is decided there.
3. A proposal with two alternatives and the reason for each. If neither convinces you, we start again.
4. Fora Travel makes the bookings, the agency I work with. While you are travelling, the number you call is still ours.

Who I work with

You pay the hotel’s own rate. Nothing is added because the booking goes through me. Where the programmes apply, that same rate often already includes breakfast, a credit to spend on the property, an upgrade when one is available, a late check out. Which ones apply, and at which hotel, I write to you before booking. I am not going to promise you a breakfast that then is not there.

How I get paid

The properties pay me, with a commission on your stay. Not you. It means that what I earn depends on where I send you, and you should know that before you write to me, not after.

That is why the only proof you can ask me for is that I tell you no. An advisor who never rules anything out is not working for you.

If you have slept at Luxury Camp at Union Lido, the planning is included. For complex itineraries there may be a planning fee, and I tell you before we start, not at the end.

The booking portal

You can also do it yourself.

Fora gives me a booking portal with my name on it. Type a destination below: the portal opens, you see the hotels with rates and dates, and you can book right there. The booking still goes through me, and while you are travelling the number you call is still ours.

Before showing rates and availability, the portal asks for your email: that is how Fora links the search to me.

The reviews

The reviews below speak about the property I designed and the team I chose. It is the same criterion I use when I plan trips.

«Every year I plan my holidays with Mattia. He always manages to bring his hospitality wherever I am.»

«I stayed at Luxury Camp, and in many years of life and career I had never come across hospitality like this. The warmth and care of Mattia and his staff is unique.»

And on Google, where the reviews are written by guests:

4.5 out of 5, across 150 Google reviews. The average includes all of them, the critical ones too: you can read them one by one.

And among those who have slept in the suites, as covered by the press: Marco Cesati Cassin, Luca Toni, Tania Cagnotto, Kristian Ghedina, two members of Jamiroquai.

Let's talk

Leave your email here. I will get back to you.

Twenty minutes of conversation, no obligation and nothing to decide. You tell me where you are thinking of going, I tell you what I think from inside the trade.

Your email is used only to get back to you: no newsletter, no list. Privacy notice.

Or write directly to mattia.ferro@fora.travel. The team answers, and I sign the proposal.