He carried the flag of the Four Moors into the international tourism circuit, maintaining his identity. Engineer Antonio Corbeddu, 93, died Tuesday in Rome, where he lived, and where his funeral was held, but "our brother Tonino" remains a "fellow countryman" of the Orosei community. This is how the parish of San Giacomo mourns him, in the town where the patriarch of the hotel industry was born, raised, and where he took his first steps in building the foundations of his empire.
The story – From the construction of second homes on the island's eastern coast in the early 1950s, to the brilliant idea of diving headlong into the hotel industry in the late 1960s, when the prince of the Costa Smeralda, Karim Aga Khan, began laying the first stones in Porto Cervo. From there, with three four-star hotels (all Colonna), passing through Baia Sardinia, Santa Teresa, and Golfo Aranci, and on to Olbia, where he has four more between the town and the tourist villages of Cugnana and Porto Rotondo, the entrepreneur from Baronia conquered Gallura's luxury vacation scene, becoming a (silent) protagonist in the development of a quality hospitality model.
With the ITI Hotels Group, acquired in 1975, Antonio Corbeddu is the Italian leader in the hotel industry, with the largest number of directly owned and managed properties: ten on the northeast coast of Sardinia alone, one on the northeast coast of Antigua in the Caribbean, and one in Rome, opposite Montecitorio. In 2002, he was—with his nephew Francesco Loi—in the Sardinian-Venetian consortium that attempted (and came very close to) the coup of acquiring the Costa Smeralda.
The Island in our Heart – As a testament to its solid origins, the ITI Hotels website's homepage promotes the Group's one hundred years of hospitality in three languages: English, Italian, and Sardinian: 1921 - 2021 Chent'annos! Its founder passed away, leaving a legacy of expertise to his five grandchildren from Orosei, owners of ITI Marina Hotels & Resort, which manages 35 hotels across the island. Their example and memory will always be in our hearts.
