This month for the “Vacation Like a European” series, I have written about Summer in Italy, an agency based in Italy, run by Italians, but serving mostly English-speaking clients. Most of their rentals are in southern Italy, on the popular Amalfi Coast (Sorrento, Capri, Positano, Praiano, Amalfi) and further south on the less well known and less expensive Cilento Coast - perfect destinations for a fabulous seaside vacation. They serve other popular parts of Italy as well - Rome, Lazio, Tuscany, Umbria, Lake Como, Venice.
This is small, personal agency, who care about their clients and provide a range of beautiful vacation rentals from budget to luxury. I have known Luca Trotta, the General Manager, since he started the agency and I highly recommend them.
Summer in Italy (Spring, Fall and Winter too!)
The vacation rental agency Summer in Italy is a family affair, lead by Gioconda Trotta. Gioconda and her family started in the business almost by accident, renting out their summer home on the Cilento Coast, a beautiful “off the beaten track” area south of the Amalfi coast. Their century-old summer house originally belonged to her husband’s grandfather Pietro.
There was so much demand for their vacation rental that they started to work with other family members and friends to make their summer homes available to tourists. Many of these homes were left empty for much of the year, so everyone benefited by turning them into vacation rentals: extra income for the owners and lovely places to stay for the tourists. After a few years the Trotta family decided to take the next step and become a vacation rental agency. Summer in Italy was launched in 2001.
Now they have a staff of seven (many are in the Trotta family), offices in Italy (Salerno) and Switzerland (Lugano – near Lake Como in Italy), and over 500 properties throughout Italy. Summer in Italy is a good local vacation rental company that selects vacation rental properties carefully and offers personalized service.
Luca Trotta, Gioconda’s son, is the General Manager (see my interview with him at the end of this article). He is fluent in English and even understands our “American ways” because he spent a year in the US as an exchange student, living with an American family in the Washington D.C. area. “It was an incredible experience” says Luca, “and English is just a fraction of what I learnt during that year.” Now Luca is in his mid-thirties, married with a four year old and a new baby on the way.
Luca’s wife Mara maintains the property listings on the website, writing the descriptions and checking with the owners to be sure everything is accurately represented.
Valentina, Luca’s sister, covers the phones taking rental inquiries and talking to property owners. She has visited every vacation rental they have listed. It is Valentina’s cell number that clients are given to call any time of the day or night in case of emergency.
Andrea, Valentina’s husband’s brother, is called “Crazy Horse” because he likes to work long hours and goes online in the middle of the night to answer emails. So if you get a response in the late afternoon when you know everyone in Italy is asleep, it is Andrea burning the midnight oil. Andrea publishes a weekly booklet - Things to Do on the Amalfi Coast - that is distributed at Tourist Offices and hotels in the area.
Everyone at Summer in Italy speaks English and is used to dealing with American visitors. They have clients from 77 countries, from Albania to Zimbabwe, but the majority is from English-speaking countries: Americans (30%), Brits (20%), Australians (10%), Canadians (7%) and Irish (4%).
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The September issue of the Southwest edition of Sunset Magazine (New Mexico and Arizona) has a short interview with me about traveling in Santa Fe and the Southwest.
On July 15 Venere announced on their blog that Expedia is buying Venere. Venere is an online booking website for hotels worldwide, with a large number of hotels in Italy. Expedia is a large online travel company running Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, TripAdvisor.com and other travel sites.
