Success story
By submitting, you agree to be contacted by email, phone, or SMS about Hostfully updates and offers.
Founded by vacation rental veteran Amber DelPiano, The Stella is a curated booking agency and remote property management service connecting hidden European destinations with global travelers.
Location: Italy
Number of listings: 48
Using Hostfully since: 2020
Favorite features: Open API and custom integrations, multi-channel distribution with calendar synchronization
Hostfully gives us the flexibility to run a hybrid business without forcing us into rigid workflows
The idea for TheStella.com emerged during Amber DelPiano’s travels along the Adriatic coast. As a seasoned vacation rental operator who has managed more than 150 properties in the US, Amber was drawn to small coastal villages that most tourists overlooked. Travelers were searching for authentic local stays, but they rarely found them, “because they don’t travel to the small villages where those experiences actually exist,” said Amber.
In these destinations, Amber encountered beautiful, high end properties run by local hosts who struggled to reach international guests. Many hosts did not speak English fluently, which limited their ability to market effectively on platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo, said Amber. As a result, many of these properties were listed only on non-English, hyper-local OTAs, with no presence on major global booking channels or direct booking sites.
Amber saw a clear opportunity. She could curate these properties, present them through a visually rich booking site, and apply her industry expertise to remotely manage guest communication, pricing, and the overall experience. The challenge, however, was technical. Some listings would need to be imported from niche OTAs, while others would be created manually through direct relationships with owners. Traditional property management software could not support both approaches at once or distribute listings reliably across multiple channels.
“The business model made sense right away,” said Amber, “but I couldn’t find a system flexible enough to actually run it.”
Hostfully’s open API became the foundation that allowed TheStella.com to operate as both a booking agency and a property management service. Because the Hostfully Property Management Platform is built API-first, it could support imported listings from niche OTAs and manually created properties within the same system.
Working with Hostfully’s engineering team, Amber implemented a custom integration that pulls listing data from non-English OTAs directly into the Hostfully PMP. Once imported, listings can be tailored for international travelers and distributed across Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, the original OTA, and TheStella.com. When a reservation is made, availability is automatically updated everywhere, removing the risk of double bookings.
“Hostfully is what keeps everything in sync,” said Amber. “It allows us to manage a lot of complexity without creating extra work.”
Amber built TheStella.com as a custom booking agency site and connected it to Hostfully using the direct booking widget. From there, every property managed in Hostfully automatically appears on TheStella.com alongside OTA listings. Pricing, calendars, guest communication, and remote operations are all managed centrally.
Visually and operationally, Hostfully sits at the center of the business. It enables a hybrid model that blends OTA distribution, direct bookings, and remote property management without forcing rigid workflows. “Hostfully really is the nucleus of the business,” said Amber. “It gives us the freedom to build the model we envisioned, instead of adapting our vision to the software.”
With Hostfully at the core, TheStella.com connects hidden destinations with global travelers while giving local hosts access to professional management and broader demand.
Are you planning a similar business to Amber's? Let’s talk.