Our services
What they say about us
Discover what people and companies who have chosen us say about us. Their experiences tell the value of our work, every day.
P. Colamussi
Digital professionals who work hard, ranging from web marketing to the development of incredible web portals. Always available and ready to take on new challenges. I couldn't recommend them more!
R. Zampetti
I have been collaborating with the guys for about two years for the creation of graphics, brochures and, last but not least, for my company's new website.
Davide and the guys offer a 100% serious and professional service. They respect delivery times, know how to organize and tastefully modify the content provided, and offer complete assistance once the work is delivered. Competition is high in this market and I have worked with several agencies, but I assure you it is not at all easy to find partners like them. I absolutely recommend them.
D. Bricco
We collaborate with them for various projects, especially when our clients come to us with very specific requests. With them you can always count on a super precise, competent and professional partner for your agency.
Alessia Agazzi
Every time I have a doubt, the SHM Studio team is always available and ready to answer. Even after the site delivery, Davide followed me (and still follows me) with patience and professionalism. I feel truly supported! Highly recommended for those looking for continuous and reliable assistance.
Matteo Rinaldi
When I decided to renew my company's image, I was full of
doubts. SHM Studio followed me patiently, listening to every need and
proposing innovative solutions. The new website has received compliments from all
our clients. A truly positive experience!
Riccardo Boschi
Our company was practically invisible on Google, despite our efforts. With the SEO consultancy from Davide and SHM Studio, we finally understood where we were going wrong. After a few months, thanks to constant and transparent work, we reached the first page for our keywords. Highly recommended for those who want concrete results!
5 Minute Studio
Our logistics company needed to modernize its digital approach to stay competitive. A trusted contact recommended SHM Studio, a web agency in Milan, and after an initial consultation, we decided to proceed. Their team provided a comprehensive digital audit, redesigned our website to improve usability, and implemented an SEO strategy that quickly improved our search engine rankings. They also set up analytics tools to allow us to monitor the results. The improvements in our online visibility and lead generation were evident and measurable. I recommend SHM Studio to any company looking for expert digital guidance and concrete results.
Doing tourism marketing in Bologna means dealing with a guest who stays for a short time, often arrives from abroad, and decides quickly. The city has become a very popular city break destination, but this success has a downside: every short stay has to be won back from scratch, and without a strong direct channel, portal commissions take a major chunk of the margin on every room sold. For a downtown hotel, a chain with multiple addresses in the city, or a property in the hills, the real question is how to turn Bologna's visibility into bookings that go through your own website.
As a tourism marketing agency, we partner with established hospitality businesses, not individual short-term rental apartments. We were born in Milan over ten years ago, work with businesses all over Italy, and every project has a senior person as a direct point of contact, from analyzing booking data to measuring results. No standard packages: the plan stems from your markets, your rates, and how much commissions are costing you today.
What we offer to companies looking for tourism marketing
Research in English and German
Bologna's top foreign markets are Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom: visitors from these countries look for hotels, neighborhoods, and experiences in their own language. Let's build a SEO Strategy separate for each market, with pages written for those searches and not simple translations of the Italian site, because hotel SEO in German follows different logic than in English.
A website that holds its own against OTAs
The guest compares prices on multiple open tabs. We design Websites for hotels that load quickly, immediately show the direct rate and conditions, and take you to the hotel's booking engine without detours. Each page has a measurable goal, from the room details to the page dedicated to the neighborhood or event that brings the guest to the city.
Packages that extend the city break
With short average stays, every extra night changes the profit margin. We design packages built around cuisine, museums, hills, and the Apennines, with pre-arrival upsell offers and deals to return in another season, and we communicate them with Meta campaigns aimed at those who have already visited the site or have already stayed with you.
Campaigns for the quieter periods
The growth of 2025 is not repeating itself: in the first months of 2026, arrivals and presences have only risen by 2%. With the google ads campaigns Oversee searches for the facility name and congress/event dates to fill periods that you currently leave to portals.
Identity for a city group
If you manage multiple facilities across the city and province, each risks speaking differently and stealing customers from the other. With the Branding we give the group a clear identity and each property a precise positioning, whether for business travelers, families, or those looking for the historic center. This way, even the campaigns stop competing with each other.
Quick answers in multiple languages
Requests via email, chat, and messages arrive at all hours and in different languages. With AI and automation we prepare immediate answers to frequently asked questions, route group and corporate requests to the right department, and collect contacts in the CRM, without taking time away from the front office for guests already at the property.
Tourism in Bologna: numbers, markets, and length of stay
Bologna is among the main tourist destinations in Emilia-Romagna. According to the 2025 tourism data for the Emilia-Romagna Region , the province exceeded 3.17 million arrivals (+10.66%) and recorded 7.18 million overnight stays. In the municipality alone, between January and August 2025, Bologna Welcome counted 1,455,589 arrivals (+7.6%).
The figure that weighs the most in a tourism web marketing plan is another: in the municipality, 61% of arrivals between January and August 2025 were from abroad, again according to Bologna Welcome, the destination's official DMO. The chart shows the presence of the three main foreign markets in the metropolitan city over the same period.
Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom account for 243,850, 222,950, and 187,040 visitors respectively: three different audiences in terms of language, search habits, and travel motivations, who are unlikely to respond to the same message or the same campaign. Treating them as a single "foreign audience" is one of the most common mistakes made on city hotel websites.
Then there's the issue of rhythm. The ratio of arrivals to overnight stays in the province indicates short stays, typical of city breaks: many guests, few nights each. And after a very strong 2025, the data from Bologna Welcome for January-April 2026 indicate 700,440 arrivals, with a 2% growth in arrivals and overnight stays. Demand exists, but it's no longer growing on its own, and those who have only invested in portals notice it first.
For a hotel or a group in Bologna, this translates into three priorities: mastering English and German search to rely less on OTAs, extending stays through packages, upselling, and CRM, and using conferences, events, and the Apennines to beat seasonality during slower periods. These are different levers, but they need to be managed together: a long-weekend package only works if someone actually finds it, and an event campaign only pays off if the website converts.
Incentives for tourism marketing in Bologna in 2026
As of 10/06/2026, among the tools we checked, the one open for Bologna hotels is the EuReCa Fund, running until October 30, 2026, which however funds property investments rather than marketing; the regional tourism commercialization call is closed.
| Tool | Status | Period | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| EuReCa Fund - Investments for the qualification, upgrading, and diversification of accommodation tourism offerings Emilia-Romagna Region | Open | opens February 16, 2026, closes October 30, 2026 at 11:55 PM | SMEs managing hotel and outdoor facilities: redevelopment, furnishings, equipment, new services, and digital or sustainable solutions. Interest subsidy plus a fixed €10,000, maximum €150,000. Covers investments, not marketing services. |
| Tourism marketing for the year 2026 Emilia-Romagna Region (Regional Law 4/2016) | Closed | from November 18, 2025 (10:00 AM) to December 18, 2025 (1:00 PM) | Tourism SMEs participating in their Destination's program: promo-commercialization projects, contribution up to 50%. Covers marketing activities. Annual call: 2027 edition not yet published. |
Both tools are regional and also apply to Bologna and its province. The EuReCa Fund can be useful if you are renovating rooms and common areas or if you are introducing new digital and sustainable services and solutions: an interest-rate subsidy of up to 6% plus a fixed amount of 10,000 euros, with a cap of 150,000 euros. However, it doesn't cover websites, SEO, or campaigns. The tourism marketing call for proposals instead covered promo-commercialization, up to 50% under de minimis, but it was only open from November 18 to December 18, 2025 and only to SMEs participating in their local Tourism Destination program, in this case Metropolitan Bologna. The 2027 edition hasn't been published yet: if you're interested, check your participation in advance and read the new text before planning any expenses.
Case study: Spaesati, content and SEO for tourism
Spaesati is a tourism project in Tuscany, so far from Bologna geographically but close in terms of the challenge: telling the story of a place so that people looking for it online find it and want to go there. For Spaesati we worked on keyword research, SEO, editorial design, social media and community management.
There are no published numbers for this project and we don't make them up. Instead, we'll explain why this method works for a hotel in Bologna. People planning a weekend in the city look for the neighborhood, food, exhibition, or event first, and only then for a place to stay. If your content answers those initial questions, you get chosen before they even check booking portals. The editorial work done for Spaesati, organizing topics the way travelers look for them, is the foundation for this: neighborhood guides, food trails, content tied to exhibitions, fairs, and conferences, written in your guests' languages and linked to room pages. This way, every piece of content works for both visibility and direct bookings. Learn more about the case of Lost in our portfolio .
Do you want to know how many of your rooms in Bologna you could sell from your website instead of from portals? Book a free 30-minute audit .
FAQ
The FAQ section was created to offer clear and concrete answers to those who, hearing about web agencies, might wonder what benefits they can truly gain from a team of professionals.
For a hotel in Bologna, tourism marketing brings together four areas: a fast hotel website with booking engine, content, and SEO in Italian, English, and German; campaigns focused on the brand, event dates, and foreign markets; and a CRM that works on upselling and guest returns. The weight of each depends on your clientele: a downtown hotel with many foreigners starts with international SEO, while a property working with congresses and businesses starts with search campaigns. We define this together in the initial audit.
Working on the moments when the guest makes a decision. Before: making sure you show up when they search for a hotel in a neighborhood or for an event, using SEO and targeted campaigns. During: offering a clear direct rate on the website, real perks, and a booking engine that is fast on smartphones. After: collecting their contact info and offering them a reason to come back, maybe for an exhibition or a conference in the next season. With short stays like the ones typical in Bologna, even a small shift toward the direct channel makes a difference in the commissions paid to OTAs.
At least Italian and English, and with good reason also German. Second Bologna Welcome , between January and August 2025, 61% of arrivals in the city were foreign and the top markets by number of visitors were Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. English covers two of these markets, and German the first. Other languages should be added if your booking system data shows an audience that truly matters. Quality counts: pages written specifically for that market perform much better than automatic translations of the entire site.
As of 06/10/2026, the Region's EuReCa Fund is OPEN, from February 16 to October 30, 2026, but it finances investments in hotel and open-air accommodation facilities, not marketing services. The 2026 tourism commercialization call is CLOSED: the window ran from November 18 to December 18, 2025, and was reserved for SMEs participating in the Tourist Destination program. It covered promo-commercialization up to 50%. The 2027 edition has not been published yet: always check the requirements on the official text before deciding.
Let's kick things off with a free 30-minute audit of your channels, markets, and reliance on OTAs. Then, we define the role of each property in your group, so a business hotel and a weekend getaway spot aren't fighting for the same searches. Next up come dedicated websites or sections, market-specific SEO, coordinated campaigns, and automated inquiry handling. A senior SHM expert stays your direct go-to person from start to finish, and we track our success through direct bookings, length of stay, and saved commissions.
By making good use of the data you already have. Guests who have stayed at your hotel in Bologna for work, a conference, or a weekend already know the property and don't need to go through a booking portal to come back. We collect contacts in compliance with privacy regulations, organize them in a CRM by travel purpose and language, and set up targeted communications: direct offers for slower periods, invitations to city events, and perks for booking directly on the website. With AI and automation these dispatches are sent at the right time, without burdening the front office.
