Is there an easy way to sync calendars and update prices across multiple booking sites?

Tools
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I’m using several sites besides Airbnb such as Flipkey, Roomorama and Wimdu to promote my properties. I get quite many bookings from all these sites. But despite the fact that I’m using the ical sync tool on all sites, I often experience delays and sometimes double bookings occur.

Any ideas of better tools to instantly sync calendars across different booking sites? And it would also be great to be able to update the price from one tool instead of updating many different sites.

1 Like
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Hey @Jan_J - calendar availability syncing is tough as not all services offer two-way sync or they only pull updates once per day, leading to the double-bookings you’re talking about. BookingSync has decent coverage and allows you to manage everything in one place. I think there a few others but I’ve got the most experience with Sebastian who runs it. Price syncing is actually a bit harder as many of the sites don’t have an API to allow for easy price syncing, or only offer it to people with 5+ listings (Flipkey’s policy). Beyond Pricing (www.beyondpricing.com), my company, is working on it but is likely to just integrate with someone like BookingSync who focuses purely on that. Hopefully that’s somewhat helpful!

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Thanks, will have a look at these services

Jan

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Hi Jan,

I can also suggest you look at https://www.orbirental.com, which has full two-way calendar synchronization for all major listing sites, along with listing and pricing updates.

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How about OwnerRez? I use it as my CRM and all of the calendars pull from that central calendar.

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AirBnB, Wimdu, Flipkey and others are only one way, they synchronize over iCal.

For sites like Booking.com, Tiscover(HRC) and Thomas I use a channelmanager.
If you have multiple properties, it is certainly worth looking into a good channelmanager.

If you are based Europe, I advise you to have a look at easybooking.com.
I chose them because of the functionality and good pricelevel, very affordable for a small business like I have.

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No direct price indicate…

What about Outswitch ?

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I don’t sync prices but I do use a Google calendar as my master. It pushes and pulls on ABB and HomeAway. Works for me.

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@chris the easy booking URL you shared is timing out for me… are they still in business?

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@catskillsgrrl great idea… I’ll give a master Google calendar a shot… does Google’s calendar get and sync details about each reservation such as the name of the guest etc? Can a master Google calendar indicate which reservation is from which site… perhaps by color coding? Do you do anything special with the settings of a master Google calendar that helps you manage it better?

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Yes, they still are. It is part of the Zadego group, a huge german company.

It seems their com url has a problem.
This version is still working: http://www.easybooking.at/en/

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I only recently started listing on multiple sites.

So what I have done so far is export my airbnb calendar to the other sites, then ensure my airbnb calendar is kept updated including marking as unavailable dates booked on other sites.

I presume this will work? Or could another site ( say site x) cancel a booking already made, because I marked the date on airbnb as unavailable, after I’d already accepted a booking at site x?

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I’ve never had a problem. They would have to be booking pretty fast and furious. From what I have seen a change in the Google or Air calendar is reflected on the other within minutes, but you can just experiment for free since there is no cost in any of it.

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Hi @Jan_J,

Did you manage to find a solution?

Myself and a couple of friends are building Uplisting.io to solve this problem. At the moment we just have the ability to sync bookings and availabilities but rates are next on our roadmap. We’ve just launched and are offering 6 months free to early adopters in exchange for feedback and to help shape what we become.

Let me know if you’re interested in checking it out.

Thanks!
Vincent

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I am using hostaway.com seems that you are starting similar product

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Thanks for replying @sylvainbg. Yes, similar product to hostaway (there are a few others too!). How are you finding HostAway?

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Had some bugs in the beginning but works well now and they are reactive to improve.

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Good stuff. Best of luck with everything!

21

hi everyone
We’re fairly new to AirBNB so this may be covered in their help pages, but…
Our question is:
If someone puts in an enquiry and the site marks it as pending owner response, will the sync software mark it unavailable?

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Hi everyone,

I’m listing on a www.mauritius.goto.mu that offers to export calendar (iCal). How would I import this into AirBNB? Or that not be possible?

Thanks for your help