Small Luxury Hotel Ca di Dio in Venice Invites Unique Pre-Opening Stay Through Auction

Ca' di Dio, the only 5-star hotel opening in Venice in 2021, will officially welcome guests on August 27th, but will now also offer the exclusive opportunity to bid online with NFT (non-fungible token) technology for one lucky guest to have the hotel to themselves for the night of August 19th.

The refurbishment of Ca' di Dio began in 2019 under the direction of the architect and designer Patricia Urquiola. Set to open in late August from the new luxury hotel brand VRetreats, the highly anticipated hotel will now be available exclusively to one lucky bidder. The international auction will take place on OpenSea, the world's largest NFT marketplace to book the first room in this historical building created by Jacopo Sansovino and dating from the 1500s. All those interested can connect to Opensea.io or Vretreats.com and bid now through 6am ET on Monday, August 16; the starting bid will be US$250. The winning bidder will have the entire Ca' di Dio hotel for the night, inclusive of private transfer by boat to the hotel and dinner on the belvedere with breathtaking views of the Venetian lagoon and San Giorgio Maggiore.

"Expectations for the opening of Ca' di Dio at an international level are very high and the possibility of promoting the hotel through the use of innovative NFT technology will allow us to experiment with new distribution models that have not yet become mainstream, and which are extremely interesting to us," says Angelo La Riccia, Commercial Director of VRetreats and VOIhotels.

"We as a group have been focusing on travel tech innovation for some time, and the opening of Ca' di Dio is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate this growing mastery of technological frontiers," states Michele Ruberl, Head of Architecture & Integration at Alpitour World.