Hotel Rurale Orti di Nora
We still sell through OTAs. With Smartcrs, we do it more deliberately: we can set rules that act as a filter and work in the hotel’s favor.
Santa Margherita di Pula, Italy
35
Background
Hotel Rurale Orti di Nora is located in Santa Margherita di Pula, within an agricultural estate of around 30 hectares. Hotel operations are part of a wider rural setting that also includes activities such as vineyard and olive cultivation.
The property opened in 2015 with around ten rooms and has grown over time to 35 rooms across different categories, from double and family rooms to suites.
Today, Orti di Nora also offers two dining areas, a conference center, a sauna, a spa, swimming pools and large green areas.
Its guests are mainly families. In recent years, however, the offer has also expanded toward couples and travelers looking for a stay closer to nature.
The challenge
When Gianmario Foddai joined as director in 2022, Orti di Nora was a property with strong potential. At the same time, its sales and daily operations were still not very structured and relied heavily on manual work.
“When I arrived, the property did not have a real sales system or customer care. Quotes were sent either by email or through the property management software. But because the software did not have an integrated CRS, there was no way to recover them. You would send a quote and then lose track of it. That is why most bookings came from Booking.com, and my first goal was to turn that situation around.”
Orti di Nora turned to Smartness to:
- bring more structure to the sales process and manage inquiries and quotes more effectively
- strengthen the direct channel and reduce the weight of intermediated channels
- create simple processes that could be easily transferred to the team
The solutions
Orti di Nora adopted Smartpms, the all-in-one software that centralizes the property’s daily operations, and connected it to Smartcrs, the Central Reservation System dedicated to sales, distribution and direct bookings.
Smartcrs helps Orti di Nora:
- manage inquiries and quotes in a structured way, so sales opportunities no longer get lost between emails, notes or disconnected tools
- strengthen the booking engine, turning the website into a real direct sales channel instead of just a showcase
- centralize distribution and maintain greater control over availability, channels and booking flows
- reduce reliance on OTAs by shifting a growing share of business toward owned channels
- simplify reception work through clearer processes that are easier to pass on, even to changing teams or staff without advanced technical training
“Implementation was very fast, and we started seeing the effects in the first year. It was a major change because we transformed many processes that had become routine. But I knew it was the right direction, and I proved it with the only thing that could really speak: the results.”
The results
For Orti di Nora, the shift was already visible in the first year of working with Smartness.
Between 2022 and 2023, revenue increased by +13%. Bookings through the booking engine grew by +225%, while offline direct bookings increased by +15%.
OTAs did not disappear from the channel mix, but their share dropped significantly, from 54% to 37%.
From the first acceleration to sustained growth
Over the following two years, Orti di Nora consolidated its growth and continued to strengthen its distribution model.
2024 was a year of stabilization after the strong acceleration of the first year. In 2025, the main indicators started growing again, confirming the strength of the path the hotel had taken.
Overall, between 2022 and 2025, revenue increased by +42%. The direct channel as a whole grew by +56%, and the booking engine became one of the property’s most important sales channels.
Booking engine: the digital direct channel becomes strategic
The clearest result came from the booking engine, which grew by +323% over three years.
In 2022, online direct bookings represented just 8% of revenue. By 2025, they reached 22%, becoming the property’s second-largest sales channel.
Its contribution to overall growth was even more significant: the booking engine alone generated around 58% of the total revenue increase recorded over the period.
Less reliance on OTAs, more control over distribution
In 2022, at the start of the partnership with Smartness, OTAs accounted for 54% of the distribution mix. By 2025, their share had fallen to 36%, a reduction of around 18 percentage points.
The direct channel as a whole, including the booking engine and offline direct bookings, grew by +56%.
“This was the most impactful result for us. Because it is not just about revenue. You can generate one million euros in revenue, but if 80%, so 800,000 euros, comes from Booking.com and you have to pay almost 20% commission on that, what is really left in your pocket? Very little.
We still sell through portals, but with Smartcrs we can do it more deliberately. Thanks to the OTA rules, we can set policies that act as a filter and work as much as possible in the hotel’s favor. Alongside the right tool, you also need a strategy.”
Simpler processes and more sustainable growth
Smartcrs and Smartpms helped Orti di Nora turn a loosely structured way of working into a clearer, more professional and more sustainable system.
This became especially important as the property grew. Since 2022, Orti di Nora has not only increased revenue, but also expanded its internal organization: the team grew from 10 to 25 people, while the offer expanded with new rooms and services.
“When I arrived, Orti di Nora had a team of 10 people with strong practical experience, but limited familiarity with software. So I needed tools that were effective, but also simple to use and easy to pass on to new team members.
With Smartness, we were able to get them operational right away in managing inquiries, quotes and booking flows, and this had a direct effect on the conversion rate.”
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Albero Capovolto
Before, I used to spend the whole day in front of the computer. Now my operational workload has not just been cut in half: it is one tenth of what it used to be.