From an Umbrian farm stay to Italy's AI receptionist.

I come from tourism. Not Silicon Valley, not a career in big tech. I come from an Umbrian family that has watched, generation after generation, the way Italy welcomes those who come to visit us.

I've worked among farm stays, small hotels, houses rented week by week — that warm, artisanal, deeply human world we call Italian hospitality. And I've seen, with my own eyes, the same scene repeat itself in dozens of different properties:

A German guest writes on WhatsApp at 11 PM on a Sunday night. The reply arrives Monday morning at 9. That guest has already booked elsewhere.

A Perugian hotelier once told me: "It's not the big chains I'm afraid of. It's the bookings I lose between 10 PM and 8 AM, every single day of the year." That sentence stuck with me for two years.

Why Otelya

Otelya is the answer to that sentence. It's not a chatbot. It's not "generic AI applied to hospitality." It's a multilingual receptionist built specifically for the way Italians welcome: with the tone of the individual property, with the real context (hours, prices, services, rules), and with the tact of knowing when to stop and pass the word back to you.

Otelya replies in over 30 languages, 24 hours a day, on every channel — email, WhatsApp, phone, bookings, website. But the real magic is that international guests don't realize they're talking to an AI. They feel welcomed by someone who speaks their language and knows the home they're about to enter.

The name

Otelya isn't a name invented in a corporate brainstorm. It's born from hotel + Italy, mixed with the softness of an Italian feminine name — because in Italy, hospitality has historically been something feminine, maternal, of home.

What I do now

I work every day to make Otelya smarter, more Italian, and more useful. I personally reply to every email from those who sign up. I call the first pilot properties myself, one at a time, to understand what works and what's missing.

If you run a hospitality property in Italy — big or small, historic or new — and you want Otelya to work for you, write to me. Either I'll reply, or Otelya will. Either way, the language will be that of Italian hospitality.