Rome, Italy – Following the death of Pope Francis on Monday, Maria Panessa, who manages the front desk of an upscale hotel in Rome, was inundated with booking requests.

The Bettoja Hotel Atlantico, a family-run establishment housed in an Art Deco building, saw a surge in reservations, including for their luxury penthouse suites, explained the 50-year-old.

“This area is usually busy, but … since the pope died we have had so many more requests, delegations from everywhere,” Panessa said.

Located a stone’s throw from Roma Termini, the city’s bustling central train station, the hotel is popular with tourists looking for a convenient location or regular guests who enjoy its architectural splendour. But now its rooms are filled with foreign dignitaries and media professionals who are in the city to attend the pope’s funeral tomorrow.

Maria Panessa [Nils Adler/Al Jazeera]
Panessa explained that the hotel’s location has newfound significance as it is positioned on a 350-metre (382-yard) stretch between Roma Termini and the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of Rome’s four major basilicas, where Pope Francis will be buried on Saturday. The church was much loved by the pope, who was 88 when he died, and who visited it more than 100 times over the course of his 12-year papacy.

Most of his predecessors had chosen to be buried in the Vatican, with Leo XIII the last pope to be interred outside the city-state in 1903. Panessa expects his popularity to drastically raise the number of people visiting the area.

“People in Italy have a lot of respect for Pope Francis. He was pure, and people understood that he stood up against the system,” she said. “I felt very bad when he died, I had a lot of empathy for him.”

Panessa added that she saw him as someone who was committed to caring for the poor and marginalised.

Bernado Tahan, a member of the hotel’s management team, sat behind piles of invoices in the staff office as he explained that Pope Francis was important to him because he was not afraid to tell “uncomfortable truths”, including describing Israel’s war in Gaza as a “genocide”.