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The hotel is no longer seen as just a place to stay, but as a platform for experiences. This is the vision behind the Industry Project involving students from the Master’s in Fashion & Luxury Brand Management for Hospitality at Istituto Marangoni Milano, in collaboration with Hotel VIU Milan. It is a creative laboratory that places students at the centre of a real challenge: imagining new formats that can redefine the spaces of contemporary hospitality.
At the heart of the project, launched in recent days, are two iconic hotel spaces - the VIU Suite and the VIU Terrace - which students are asked to reinterpret not just as physical locations, but as true narrative devices. The suite becomes a private experiential space, designed to host exclusive events, photo shoots, and immersive moments. The terrace, meanwhile, transforms into a dynamic, seasonal destination that attracts diverse audiences through a curated program of events and special initiatives. The goal is ambitious: to design concepts that are replicable and communicable, capable of strengthening the hotel’s positioning, generating desirability, and activating spaces at strategic times of the year. At the same time, the project aims to drive social media traffic across platforms where Hotel VIU Milan already showcases a highly dynamic image.
A Multi-layered Project
The students’ work unfolds across multiple levels - from defining the creative idea, including naming, market research, and concept development, to building a full experience encompassing the guest journey, atmosphere, sensory details, and use of space. This approach reflects the evolving needs of the sector, where experience is increasingly central to the offer, even more than the product itself.
As mentioned above, communication is also essential. Each project must identify a specific target, build a distinctive positioning, and develop a coherent narrative that resonates across channels - from social media to collaborations with brands, artists, and media partners. The hotel thus becomes a creative hub, a place that connects different worlds.
A New Idea of Hospitality
This project perfectly embodies the evolution of luxury hospitality, where value lies not only in aesthetics and service, but in the ability to create memorable, shareable experiences. At the same time, it offers Istituto Marangoni Milano students the opportunity to engage with a brief that mirrors real-world dynamics, developing increasingly in-demand skills: strategic vision, storytelling ability, and experiential design.
In a constantly evolving market, collaborations like this demonstrate how academia and industry can engage in meaningful dialogue to advance new models of hospitality.
Hotel VIU Milan: An Innovative Approach
It is the first - and currently the only - hotel of the Viscardi Hotels group, launched as a pilot project for a concept that aims to redefine contemporary hospitality. Opened in 2017 in the Porta Volta district, an area then undergoing major urban transformation, Hotel VIU now sits in a vibrant hub between Corso Como and Piazza Gae Aulenti. From the outset, Hotel VIU has stood out for its innovative approach, combining architecture, sustainability, and lifestyle. The building, with its green façades and integration of natural elements, embodies a more fluid, open idea of hospitality than traditional hotels - no longer just a place to sleep, but a space to experience, even for non-guests. In the long term, the goal is to create a collection of hotels that engage with the local context while maintaining a global identity.
As the VIU slogan - or rather, its "VIULOSOPHY" - states: here, true luxury is emotion, not material.
