Excellence in Hospitality: Hotel Morfeo Milan, Winner of the 2022 Cleanliness Award

Hotel Morfeo Milan: Winner of the 2022 Cleanliness Award and Incubator of Ideas and Excellence.

We had the pleasure of interviewing two young rising stars of Italian hospitality: Adda Attanasio and Stefano Lucchini, representing Hotel Morfeo Milan. The hotel received the "best cleanliness award 2022" based on the review analysis carried out through TrustYou.

B: Hotel Morfeo won the Milano Cleanliness Award for 2022 based on thousands of guest reviews. How do you get these excellent results just two years after opening?

The Cleanliness Award makes us proud. For us, cleaning is everything. It's a team effort that goes from the reception to the breakfast room and up to the floors and rooms. 

The property has been in the hospitality world for five generations. It’s part of our DNA to carefully select the materials we are working with. We have managed to combine beauty and design with practicality in cleaning. For example, the headboard of the beds is a material that looks like wallpaper but is covered with paint that allows washing and sanitizing after each stay. We have always paid extra attention to the cleaning procedures. COVID-19 formalized those procedures worldwide, making customers more attentive to cleaning and sanitizing.

B: I confirm, worldwide we witnessed more mentions on cleanliness in reviews since COVID-19. Have you outsourced this department?

Yes, we have an external agency working with us in Milan. But supervision and double-checking is a responsibility for everyone in the team. For example, there is a room cleaning training that the housekeeper puts in place to ensure that the company standards  are met across all properties. We strongly believe that attention to detail creates excellence, and we are happy that this concept is also shared by our collaborators.

B: Through the semantic analysis of reviews made with TrustYou, we noticed that your customers also appreciate your beds very much. Can you tell us something about this?

We are very pleased because the choice of our beds has been researched and designed specifically for the comfort that business customers especially need at the end of the day. We’re very happy to see that a category which usually gets more negative reviews, is so highly appreciated by our guests.

B: What type of traveler do you usually host?

The typical customer is mainly the Italian corporate business traveler. Surprisingly, we realized that in the last year leisure tourists have increased, some with the intention of visiting the city and others to attend football matches or concerts at San Siro.

B: You have been the only award-winning hotel located outside the city center of Milan. What differentiates you from other hotels?

It’s a great challenge for us, considering that we’re coming from the world of 5-star hotels in southern Italy, with a totally leisure clientele. We aim to create an internal environment focused on light and freshness. Our position in viale Certosa, which for the Milanese may seem out of the way, is a feasible distance for tourists who come from cities much larger than Milan.

Travelers often prefer a new and well-kept location rather than a central location. We have also changed the way our location is perceived by the staff who effectively communicate to guests that in 15-20 minutes they can get to Brera by public transport. Taking the tram is an authentic experience that tourists love.

B: As for the world of reviews, what strategy do you adopt?

Reviews are a vital tool for both management and ownership. We constantly monitor the progress of customer reviews, especially the negative ones because they indicate where it is possible to improve. The world of online reputation needs to be monitored constantly. Getting bad reviews at first helped us straighten things out, and getting lots of great reviews later. We respond to all reviews, negative and positive. We believe that this structure works well thanks to the climate we have created with our collaborators who are all very young in this sector.

B: Are there any other strengths that make your company stand out in the world of hospitality?

We draw up a sustainability report even if we’re small. We started five years ago with the Sorrento structure, trying to become sustainable both in the choice of materials for the structures, in waste management, energy consumption and finally, with regards to human resources.