Dhigali Maldives is a five-star, 180-room property built in June 2017 under the Universal Resorts hotel group. The group recently acquired luxury 80-room sister property Faarafushi Maldives in March 2019.

We spoke to Mohamed Sha, Reservations & Revenue Manager of the two hotels, to find out how Triptease has helped the hotels build a better relationship with their guests whilst increasing direct conversions.

Triptease: Why were you looking for a platform to help you with your direct bookings?

Mohamed Sha: We had been suffering with recurrent undercutting by Agoda, Ctrip, and other OTAs. We needed to increase our direct business, but we also felt that we needed to improve our relationship with potential and returning guests.

We love speaking to our guests directly, and direct bookings are the only way a hotel can truly build a relationship with their guests.

Triptease: How did you find out about Triptease?

Mohamed Sha: I was looking at the sites of other hotels in the Maldives to observe their approach to driving direct bookings on their websites. I was looking for the elements of their websites that made me more interested in their hotel; things that caught my eye. Many of the high-end properties in our market were making use of the Triptease Platform, and I naturally became interested.

Triptease: What is your favourite feature of the Platform?

Mohamed Sha: It's amazing how much data we get from Triptease’s Insights Dashboard. We are able to track everything that’s happening on our website and booking engine, including who's searching, from where, and what device they use. We also love Triptease’s Targeted Messages. The tool allows you to test two variants of a message against each other, which is very impressive.

Next, we would like to start using Triptease’s meta solution to drive high-quality traffic to our websites from metasearch engines such as Google Hotel Ads.