The brief
The group ran five properties across St. Julian's and Sliema. Direct bookings stagnated for three years even as web traffic grew. The team suspected — correctly — that they were losing guests to OTAs in the gap between an enquiry and a response.
Their existing chat widget had 12% pickup. Most guests left for Booking.com mid-conversation. The team wanted real personalisation, in their voice, and an answer in under a minute — without staffing a 24/7 reservations desk.
What we built
- Unified inbox across website chat, WhatsApp, email, and Instagram DMs
- Per-property knowledge agent with live rate + availability awareness
- Multilingual replies (EN, MT, IT, DE, FR) trained on the brand voice
- Booking-link generation inline in the conversation
- Human handoff for VIP, complaint, or off-spec requests
- Manager dashboard with conversion funnel by property and source
Results
- Direct-booking conversion up 22% across all five properties
- Median reply time fell from 8 minutes to under 40 seconds
- OTA commission saved exceeded engagement cost by month two
- Guest satisfaction (post-stay) score moved up 0.4 points
“Every direct booking is margin we keep. The agent picked up where we kept losing — and it talks to guests the way our front desk would.”