International Women in Travel: Addicted to Maldives’ Di Lechner

Travel Weekly talks to founder and trailblazer of Addicted to Maldives, Di Lechner, about life, family and starting a business in travel.

Travel Weekly: Let’s start with your personal story; how did you come to be in travel?

Di Lechner: It’s a bit of a love story really. The other co-founder and director of Addicted, Paul (my husband) and I went to the Maldives on our honeymoon, coming up to 15 years ago.

We just fell in love with the destination. That became a place for us where we truly disconnected; the Maldives became our place.

But we just struggled to find an agent who could help educate us on what was the next best resort for us so over time we built our own relationships. About seven years ago, I decided to step aways from my job in HR to work on my work-life balance — we’d had our second child and Paul was travelling a lot. So, we were in the Maldives, and I just resigned!

With some encouragement and doing research on the stats coming out of Australia into the Maldives, we saw an opportunity.

TW: What is the biggest challenge being a woman and running a business in the Maldives?

DL: It is great to inspire other women, other people, our children, but it doesn’t come without hard work.

What we always say is that things don’t fall into your lap; creating a brand from scratch is where the hard work is, particularly in this travel space.

To become a reputable brand that people trust takes time and effort; there’s certainly been a lot of agents that have been burned by wholesalers in the past so faith in our trade network has been the biggest thing and that’s probably what we’re most proud of.

TW: What keeps you up at night?

DL: Being responsible for staff, especially coming out of a pandemic environment. We’re rebuilding again, so we’re still small, we’re now a team of four, including myself and Paul.

We need to ensure that we create, a pleasant work environment that’s conducive to productivity, but also fun, and make sure that everyone feels empowered and supported to do their job.

TW: What is the percentage of resorts that are Maldivian owned and/ or are you doing something significant to help the Maldivian people?

DL: Part of our goal for 2023 is implementing a new initiative called Addicted to Change. The idea is that a percentage from every booking will go back to individual local communities within the Maldives.

TW: What advice would you give to young women entering the travel industry?

DL: It’s such a wonderful, rewarding industry. I think the biggest thing whether it’s travel or any industry is to back yourself.

Just keep at it because if one door closes you’ve got to open another and they don’t always open themselves. You’ve got to find a way to make them open and use your skill sets, know your strengths

TW: What is your next holiday destination (outside of the Maldives)?

DL: We are heading to Nashville in January for a conference as the preferred supplier of the Goldman group.

We do a lot of business in the US as well, and even though we’re based here, the company is global. So while it is a business trip, I’ll still get my cowboy boots on and have some fun!

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

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