Michele D’Agostino
Revenue Analyst, Royal Group Hotels & Resorts
Background
Italian premium hotel group Royal Group Hotels & Resorts knows the value of the guest experience. Its five-star, designed Hotel Parco dei Principi Hotel in Sorrento and four-star Hotel Royal Continental in Naples are two of southern Italy’s most iconic hotels.
The group’s hotels are certainly unique, but their challenges aren’t: the brand has historically struggled with the constant issue of OTA undercuts, leading to fewer direct bookings, high OTA commissions, and lack of control over the pre-stay customer experience.
Making things more challenging for Royal Group is the difference between properties: while the Hotel Royal Continental is primarily a city hotel, often catering to domestic travelers, the Hotel Parco dei Principi in Sorrento is a famous leisure destination with a significant international draw. This leads to differences in booking windows, devices, and channel mix.
Royal Group needed to build strategies and integrate tools that could work across both types of hotel to drive consistent success.
Solution
Royal Group started working with Triptease in 2020 for both the Hotel Parco dei Principi and the Hotel Royal Continental. The group was drawn to Triptease for its market-leading Metasearch product and parity monitoring capabilities, but also uses Triptease Messages for website personalization, and Triptease Retargeting to run display ads - a mix that ensures that potential guests are being targeted across their booking journey.
The group generates an average of over $410k each month through these tools, meaning their partnership with Triptease generates close to $5 million in direct revenue each year.
Driving business conversions with Metasearch
Michele D’Agostino, Revenue Analyst at Royal Group Hotels & Resorts, will tell you “Our presence in metasearch is fundamental”.
And it really is. By being present (and in a high position) in this key lower-funnel channel, Royal Group won $190k in revenue in Q3 of 2025 alone, making up 14% of overall direct revenue across the two hotel websites.
While metasearch is a key part of Royal Group’s strategy for both hotels, the team sees it as especially integral for the business-focused Hotel Royal Continental, which saw nearly 16% of direct web revenue from metasearch in Q3 of 2025.
“For last minute reservations, mobile reservations - presence on metasearch is even more important.”
Michele D’Agostino, Revenue Analyst, Royal Group Hotels & Resorts
Bringing guests back to the direct website with Retargeting
Prior to working with Triptease, Royal Group wasn’t employing any kind of retargeting ads, meaning that guests who left the website without making a booking could be easily won over by promotions advertised by OTAs or competitors.
Now Royal Group is able to stay engaged with likely bookers through dynamic, personalized ads that keep the property visible while they browse other parts of the web.
The hotels win over 7% of their total direct website revenue through Retargeting, driving almost $100k of revenue in Q3 2025.
Boosting ancillaries and guest experience with web personalization
Royal Group sees Messages as a valuable part of the toolkit that lets them deliver an outstanding booking experience. They use it regularly to communicate changes or issues at their hotels, like pool closures or maintenance, which might make guests unhappy if they weren’t informed - a great example of the many ways web personalization can deliver value in addition to increasing conversion rates.
“We use Triptease as a customer service tool to support guest communication, highlight on-property activities, and promote value-added propositions directly on our website.”
Michele D’Agostino, Revenue Analyst, Royal Group Hotels & Resorts
Food & beverage (F&B) is another example. It’s an integral part of the business for Royal Group, and Triptease Messages gives them a simple, low-effort way to promote time-sensitive experiences at their onsite restaurant on important dates like New Year’s or Valentine’s Day.
But the team definitely uses Messages to boost bookings, too. The most high-performing version is a simple popup that allows guests to save their search for later, so they can easily get back into the booking flow in just a click or two. This message alone has generated over $104k in revenue for Royal Group Hotels.
What’s next for Royal Group?
In 2025 the team at Royal Group started to focus even more on direct strategy, and consider what else could help to optimize their marketing efforts. The plan includes a range of key initiatives such as:
- Building new websites to highlight the differences between the two very distinct properties, and help them target the right guests for each;
- Increased collaboration between revenue, sales and marketing, to empower promotions and more time-sensitive marketing offers that are informed by data.
- Creating unique value-add packages that are only available to direct bookers on the website;
- Adding more messages to their website to highlight the key benefits of booking direct;
- Continued monitoring and evaluation of OTA relationships.
Working with Triptease
Royal Group continues to see consistent growth with the help of its Triptease tools - already a good result - but there is more to come.
We’re looking forward to working with the team to help them grow their share of direct, reduce their cost of sale and create an even more personal booking experience for guests.
“We know there are still so many other things we can do to increase [our direct booking percentage] in the future, but we’re really satisfied with the trends we’ve seen from Triptease so far.”
Michele D’Agostino, Revenue Analyst, Royal Group Hotels & Resorts
