Amy Carter
Senior Director of Marketing and Communications, HI USA
About Hostelling International USA (HI USA)
HI USA is a nonprofit hostel network with properties in major cities across the United States, providing guests with a comfortable stay for a fraction of the cost of hotels in the same locations.
Being both a nonprofit and a hostel brand means they face a unique set of challenges when it comes to digital advertising, and their previous provider struggled to effectively support the technical complexities of HI USA’s operations.
HI USA's direct booking challenges
Communication difficulties, platform limitations, and underperformance in metasearch campaigns (due in part to booking engine issues) left the team frustrated—and underperforming against their direct booking goals. In some cases, issues with metasearch even led to HI USA’s website crashing.
HI USA initially swapped to Triptease to take advantage of Triptease’s market-leading metasearch product, but quickly realized that Triptease’s other tools could revolutionize their direct booking strategy. Now they use Triptease Metasearch, Retargeting, and Messages, and are seeing meaningful change.
We spoke with Senior Director of Marketing and Communications Amy Carter and Digital Marketing Manager Regine Boutin to learn more about the impact that Triptease has had on HI USA’s direct bookings.
Doubling ROAS with Triptease Metasearch
With their previous provider, HI USA’s ROAS on Metasearch had never exceeded 16x. When they made the change to Triptease, that increased dramatically and quickly. The month after they launched Triptease metasearch, HI USA saw a ROAS of 29x. In Q2 of 2025, ROAS increased to 33x.
In the same period, Metasearch contributed over 15% of HI USA’s direct website revenue –delivering consistent, clear-cut contributions to the brand’s bottom line.
Triptease Retargeting: No more revenue left on the table
Before Triptease, HI USA had no retargeting strategy in place. Within months of integrating it into their tech stack, it became a key revenue contributor:
- Consistent $50K+ retargeting monthly revenue over the past year
- 35x retargeting ROAS
- 7% percentage of direct web revenue
For example, in April 2025, HI USA spent just $428 USD on retargeting for HI New York City hostel, and achieved over $21,000 in revenue. That’s a ROAS of nearly 50x–all from customers who otherwise likely would have been lost to competitors or OTAs.
“For us, [retargeting revenue] is just additional revenue that we wouldn't have been able to capture before.”
Amy Carter, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at HI USA
Boosting HI USA's website’s promotional capabilities with Triptease Messages
HI USA had no way to communicate urgent promotions or drive email signups on their website before Triptease.
We had colleagues that were asking us, is there a way to be able to have a pop-up message when something special is happening? And we just didn't have the capability to do that with our booking engine.”
Amy Carter, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at HI USA
As the digital marketing manager, Regine takes ownership of HI USA’s targeted messages. With up to 10 messages live at any time, these run the gamut from evergreen price check messaging to short-term promotions.
Regine has a continuous improvement mindset, and is constantly trying out different messaging types and imagery to see what lands best. So far, she’s found that messaging promoting their flexible cancellation policy and messages encouraging customers to sign up for HI USA’s membership program have been the top performers.
Flexible booking policy messaging
Exclusive member offer messaging
Messages are driving success for HI USA, with some impressive results:
- Over $125K revenue driven through the “flexible cancellation policy” pop up
- Over 1200 signups for HI USA’s newsletter, increasing their first party data collection for further strategic marketing initiatives and driving upwards of $40k in revenue.
- Over $140K revenue driven through HI USA’s “exclusive member offer” pop up.
“I'm really happy to see the actual revenue being generated from the email capture messages over time because that was something that we weren't doing before."
Amy Carter, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at HI USA
A partnership built on collaboration
Beyond performance, HI USA emphasizes how Triptease helps bring internal teams together. Previously, marketing and revenue worked in silos. Triptease’s regular reporting has helped in their goal to give revenue management a better view of the marketing strategy.
As well as improving internal ways of working, the partnership with Triptease provides the HI USA team with additional insights and support whenever they need it.
“I would say that's the best thing for me–knowing there is a team and that they're accessible and if you have a question they can come back to you and provide you some feedback. I work really closely with [our customer success manager] Rosie.”
Regine Boutin, Digital Marketing Manager at HI USA
Working with Triptease on multiple products has also been hugely helpful, allowing the team to benefit from cross-channel efficiencies and target guests at multiple stages of their journey through one simple platform.
“One of our priorities when looking to switch providers was finding one that offered multiple products that we could use.”
Amy Carter, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at HI USA
Looking Ahead
With strong foundational performance and better internal alignment, HI USA is now exploring how to further optimize its campaigns. As domestic travel grows in importance, the team is focused on tapping new audiences and strengthening loyalty–areas where Triptease’s tools for visibility and for promotions will be key to success. As this journey continues, Triptease can act as a strategic partner, not just as a tech platform but as a true collaborator in continued direct booking success.
