Thanda Group - A Multisite Migration That Reduced Load Times by 52% Across Four Luxury Travel Websites

Thanda operates luxury safari lodges, a private island retreat, and Mediterranean cruises. Four websites. All hosted on one server. All suffering for it. We separated the multisite, moved each to dedicated hosting, and delivered a 52% improvement in site speed across the group.

The Brief

Thanda is a luxury hospitality and conservation group offering exclusive safari lodges in South Africa, a private island retreat in Tanzania, and classic cruises across the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. Their experiences combine high-end travel with a commitment to wildlife conservation, community development, and sustainability.

Ruby Digital manages monthly SEO for both Thanda Island and Thanda Safari, and identified that site speed was materially affecting SEO performance and user experience. RubyWeb was brought in to diagnose and resolve the issue. The diagnosis was clear: four websites sharing the same US-based WordPress multisite server were competing for resources, and all four were suffering.

The Challenge

A WordPress multisite installation hosting four active websites on a shared US server creates resource contention – each site competing with the others for processing capacity, memory, and database connections. For a luxury travel brand where high-value bookings are at stake, slow load times are a commercial problem as much as a technical one.

The migration needed to be executed without data loss, without extended downtime, and without disrupting four live websites serving an international audience. Domain transfers from a previous hosting provider created additional complications that extended the project timeline.

  • Four websites sharing one US-based multisite server - resource contention degrading performance across all four
  • Initial load times between 2.5 and 4 seconds - too slow for luxury travel audiences
  • US server location adding latency for a predominantly South African and international audience
  • No CDN or per-site caching configuration in place
  • Domain transfer complications from the previous hosting provider
  • All data needed to be preserved throughout the separation and migration process

Our Approach

We recommended a full multisite separation – taking each of the four websites out of the shared multisite environment and onto its own dedicated server in South Africa. This removed the resource contention entirely and placed the hosting infrastructure geographically closer to the primary audience.

The migration was executed site by site, with each transfer validated before the next began. Cloudflare CDN was implemented across all four sites as an additional performance layer, with per-site caching configurations optimised individually.

Architecture & UX Decisions

Each of the four websites was moved to its own dedicated hosting environment in South Africa. Individual caching configurations were set up per site, tuned to each site’s content and traffic profile. Images were streamlined across all four platforms as part of the migration process.

Cloudflare was configured as a CDN layer for each site, improving asset delivery speed for international visitors and providing additional security against potential DDoS exposure.

The Build

The core deliverable was the separation of a four-site WordPress multisite into four individually hosted, independently optimised websites on dedicated South African servers. Key deliverables included:

  • Full multisite separation – four websites moved from shared multisite to individual dedicated servers
  • South African server hosting provisioned for all four sites – reducing latency for the primary audience
  • All data preserved throughout the separation and migration process
  • Cloudflare CDN implemented and configured for each of the four sites
  • Individual caching setups configured per site based on content and traffic profile
  • Image streamlining across all four platforms
  • Domain transfers managed through complications with the previous hosting provider
  • Post-migration performance benchmarking across all four sites

The Outcome

Overall site speed across the Thanda portfolio improved by 52.17% following the separation. Load times that had ranged between 2.5 and 4 seconds dropped consistently below 2 seconds. Largest Contentful Paint was reduced to under 2 seconds across all sites. Total loading times came in below 6 seconds – faster than the travel sector average.

User engagement metrics confirmed the commercial impact. Thanda Safari recorded a 21.37% increase in average session duration and a 7.86% decrease in bounce rate. Thanda Island saw a 6.27% increase in session duration and a 10.09% decrease in bounce rate.

Frequently Asked Questions

WordPress multisite allows multiple websites to run within a single WordPress installation on a shared server. When those sites have different traffic patterns and resource needs, they compete for the same server capacity. Separating them onto individual servers removes that contention and lets each site be optimised independently.
Significantly. In the Thanda case, moving from a shared US-based multisite to individual South African servers reduced load times by over 52% - without changing a single line of code on the websites themselves.
A CDN distributes a site's assets across servers in multiple geographic locations. When a visitor loads the site, assets are served from the nearest CDN node rather than from the origin server. For an international audience, faster asset delivery translates directly to a better first impression.
Through careful sequencing and validation at every stage. Each site is migrated independently, with the transferred data verified against the source before DNS records are updated to point to the new server.
Because the digital experience sets the expectation for the physical one. A slow, frustrating website signals that the brand's attention to detail stops at the lobby door. For high-value bookings, a fast, seamless site is as much a brand investment as the photography.
It means visitors are spending significantly more time exploring the site - reading about experiences and progressing toward enquiry or booking. Longer sessions on a luxury travel site indicate stronger engagement and higher purchase intent.