In 2011, URBANAUTS LLC realized its first innovative hotel product in Vienna’s Belvedere neighborhood. The first hotel room (“Street Loft “) – named “The Tailoress “– was successfully operated for one year before URBANAUTS started regular operations.
By repurposing vacant commercial spaces in particularly distinctive neighborhoods (“Grätzl”) of the City of Vienna (Austria) and thoughtfully redesigning them into fragmented, decentralized Street Lofts that reflect the history of the locations, URBANAUTS addressed two market needs. Firstly, the need to revitalize vacant ground-level stores in so-called B-Locations, and secondly, the current needs of travelers, locals, and the local economy. In doing so, URBANAUTS has laid the groundwork for a successful hotel product that has turned many heads since Day One.
By involving local businesses in catering to guests, by correcting the streetscape – that suffers significantly from vacant stores – and by accommodating guests near authentic city life, the grätzlhotel meets both the desire of many travelers for personalized, individual city tourism and the needs of cities like Vienna for sustainable tourism.
In 2015, the ideal partner was found in Grätzl Betriebs LLC to jointly develop this concept further and open up new grätzlhotel locations at Karmelitermarkt and Meidlinger Markt in Vienna. In 2017, the hotel operator group expanded again and successfully launched a new apartment product: The etagerie linz in Linz, Austria, which opened in October 2018. The grätzlhotel also added new units at existing locations in 2018 and 2019.
In 2019, URBANAUTS Hospitality Group realized its first hideauts product with the Hotelwerkstatt company: Le Vignacce in Tuscany, Italy.
URBANAUTS and Hotelwerkstatt refurbished apartments in a so-called “Agriturismo” surrounded by a historic olive farm in a thoughtful way, in cooperation with the owner. Through the subsequent professionalization of the management and marketing, the magical Agriturismo Le Vignacce is now operated and marketed professionally to an international target group under the hideauts brand following current best practice standards.
Currently, Le Vignacce is run successfully by our partners from the Hotelwerkstatt.
Today, in addition to constant expansion, the URBANAUTS Hospitality Group develops innovative hotel concepts with various partners. It also provides expertise in cooperations while constantly looking for new ways to rethink hotels and vacations.