Step 1

If you do not have an account on HomeAway:

1. Create an account on HomeAway.
2. Once done, proceed to Step 2.

If you do have an account on HomeAway:

Proceed with Step 2

Step 2

1. Airbnb iCal connection only supports the following:
   • Availability updates
   • Booking Downloads
   • Automatic Adjustments
2. Airbnb iCal connection does not support rates.  You must enter rates directly into the channel's extranet.
3. Airbnb iCal connection supports cancellations but be careful. If you receive an Airbnb cancellation, please check if you have received Cancellation notice from WebBookingPro within 15 minutes.
4. Because of how the calendar URL system is designed, Airbnb iCal is only able to connect to one of the rooms of a WebBookingPro room type at a time.
5. Make sure to disable Airbnb instant booking: Airbnb iCal pulls availability data from WebBookingPro every hour. Because of this, we recommend turning off "Instant Booking" when using Airbnb. When Instant Booking is turned off, the property is always asked to "confirm" the booking. Since the property has the opportunity to verify that the requested room is still available, unexpected bookings can more easily be prevented. This also allows you to check the guest's reviews and make sure they are a good fit for your property
6. Reservations from Airbnb (iCal connection) does not contain any guest specific information, including guest’s name.
7. The iCal calendar sync description for reservations display only the last 4 digits of the guest phone number, along with a link to the reservation details page
8. The guest’s name and contact information do not appear on event titles, and the calendar sync export listing calendar information for future dates only

Connection Guide

1. Access your WebBookingPro account and go to the "Channel Manager" from the left menu
2. Click on "Add New"
3. Search for Airbnb in the list of channels and click on Create

4. Now click on "Map Rooms" under AirBnB line.

5. For each room copy from WebBookingPro a calendar link.

6. Now Login to your Airbnb Account

10. Click on the first listing's name that you would like to synchronize

11. On this page, click on Availability tab then Scroll down up to Sync calendars section and select Import Calendar

12. Paste the URL from step 7 above into your Airbnb Calendar Address (URL) field and give it a name
13. Click on Import Calendar

14. Obtain your Airbnb export calendar URL by clicking on Export Calendar

15. Paste the Airbnb URL into the Exported calendar URL in WebBookingPro

Click Save Changes

16. On the Airbnb side, click Sync Calendars for the room you have just set up listings for

Repeat the steps above for ALL of your Airbnb rooms you'd like to sync with WebBookingPro.

On WebBookingPro, click Import once completed - Your channel is now live!

Considerations

Please take the following considerations in mind when working with a calendar channel such as Airbnb:

1. Selling Dorm beds/rooms on Airbnb is not recommended
   • Calendar-based channels do not provide us with the number of customers that booked, so bookings for shared/dorm rooms will be imported as 1 bed by default, even though there could be more! It's safest to not update/sell dorm rooms on Airbnb.
2. We highly recommend disabling Instant Book with Airbnb.
   • By disabling Instant Book, you will have the opportunity to confirm all bookings before you accept them. Otherwise, an overbooking situation is more likely to occur because they download the calendar files from us in hourly intervals.  To resolve this overbooking potential, we recommend that you turn off Instant Book by toggling the Instant Book lightning icon off.
3. Only one unit can be sold per room type each night
   • As soon as a booking is made for a particular room type, that booking will block the room type from being available to anybody else on Airbnb.  Creating multiple listings for each room is not a solution because you cannot assign multiple channel listings to a single channel manager room.  At best, you can sell one unit of each room type per night on Airbnb.

Many OTA portals can use iCAL for real-time availability checking - Air B&B, Vrbo (Homeaway), FlipKey, 9Flats, ...

What is Calendar Channel?

Calendar channels, otherwise known as Vacation Rental Sites, have become very popular in recent years as the typical traveler has become more internet savvy.  These channels provide travelers with many options, from renting low cost bedrooms to booking stays at palatial estates.  These channels have tapped into the public's desire to stay in "real" places away from tourist areas.

If your property is not marketed correctly, calendar channels can become a real competitive threat.  Thankfully, WebBookingPro has you covered as we can integrate with any calendar channel that uses the standard iCal format.

How are Calendar Channels different from normal channels?

With a typical channel (such as with booking.com od Agoda), WebBookingPro has a direct connection where we can send many values, such as:

• Rates
• Availability
• Restrictions (such as MinLos, Closed to Arrival, etc)

Calendar-based channels work differently from those channels. With calendar channels, we provide them with a special calendar file that contains "appointments". This is similar to placing an appointment on your personal calendar, but in this case, the appointments lasts an entire night. Dates that are not booked are "empty", so they remain Available for booking.

With Calendar channels, WebBookingPro can only send Availability with support for Closed dates. All other values must be set directly in the channel's extranet, such as:

• Rates
• Restrictions (such as MinLos, Closed to Arrival, etc)

How Availability is Updated?

Your availability is constantly updated based on the reservations and other data that is sent to WebBookingPro. With this information, WebBookingPro updates the calendar file in real-time with your updated Availability.

Although these files are constantly updated by WebBookingPro, the calendar channel itself only "asks" for new information in the file approximately every 6 hours.

For Airbnb specifically, they "pull" data from WebBookignPro every hour. This is their native update timeframe.

Some channels use calendar check in real-time.

Two-Way versus One-Way Calendar Channels

All Calendar Channels are considered One-Way channels. If you choose to use iCAL Connection, you will have to manually adjust inventory for any incoming bookings coming from those channels.

Example: Let's say you choose to connect HomeAway (Vrbo) to WebookingPro. Here is the chain of events:

• WebBookingPro takes your Available inventory, and provides that in a calendar file to Homeaway
• Every 6 hours or so, Homeaway pulls information from that file and updates their calendar with your Availability
• When a guest books your property, Homeaway emails you the booking and places the booking in their Extranet
• Since Homeaway does not send us this booking, WebBookingPro has no idea that the room has been booked
• The property must login to WebBookingPro and manually reduce the Availability for the rooms and dates that have been booked - or make "Quick Reservation" - we suggest creating Quick Reservation
• Once the property has confirmed that the room is still Avaialble, the property is safe to "confirm" the Homeaway booking.

How to handle Cancellations?

Cancellations from a calendar channel cannot be transmitted to any 3rd parties (including WebBookingPro).

Since WebBookingPro is unaware of any Calendar Channel cancellations, the property must manage the inventory manually.

Example:

• Guest cancels the booking
• WebBookingPro is unaware of the cancellation
• Property must login to WebBookingPro and add the Availability back for the cancelled booking (if desired) - or cancel "Quick Reservation" he created for that iCAL booking

OK, I am aware of all situations with iCAL - how to connect with OTA?

Every OTA has in his extranet part where you enter direct link (URL) to iCAL for each room type.

Those links are created by WebBookingPro.

Log in WebBookingPro, go to Hotel Management - Hotel Info and find [Settings] under Channel Manager.

if you do not see iCAL under listed Channel Managers, choose "Add New", select iCAL and click "Create".

Now click on [Map Rooms] under iCAL row and you will find all links for your property.

For each property room type or room or house/Villa you will find those links:

Copy those links and past them in your desired OTA's extranet.

FIRST PART: Connecting WebBookingPro and Booking.com

First you have to connect Booking.com and WebBookingPro by choosing WebBookingPro as your "Connectivity Provider". This step has to be done only once, and requires your action (Request) and our action (Accept).

1. Log into Booking.com Extranet https://admin.booking.com
2. For selected Property, from top right choose "Account" and then "Connectivity Provider"
3. Then find blue "Switch providers" button

4. In "Enter a provider name" textbox enter "WebBookingPro"

5. Follow "Next" steps for completing connection. You have to accept some agreement between you and Booking.com.

SECOND PART: Mapping Rooms and Rates

Second part consists of Mapping Rooms (or single Property) on WebBookingPro and on Booking.Com, and mapping Rates available on Booking.com with your Rates. This step is required on first connecting, and usually if you do not change Rooms and Rates on Booking.com, you do not have to change Mapping anymore in the future.

Mapping is very important to have correct availability on WebBookingPro and Booking.com.

It is recommended to have same "Room Types" on Booking.Com and WebBookingPro.

You can have e.g. 5 Rooms of Room type "Double Room". You can define that Booking.com will always have maximum 2 Room available. So if you have 5 rooms available Booking.Com will receive only 2 rooms. If you have 1 room available, Booking.com will receive 1 room.

1. First you have to create Booking.com connection in WebBookingPro

Go to WebBookingPro admin area, from left menu choose "Hotels Management" - "Hotels Info", and from line where you property is choose "[Settings] under "Channel Manager" column.

If you do not see "Booking.com" under Active Channel Managers, click on blue "Add New" button

From "Channel Manager" dropdown list choose "Booking.com", check "Active" checkbox and click "Create" button.

2. Next step Set your Booking.com Property ID

Go to WebBookingPro admin area, from left menu choose "Hotels Management" - "Hotels Info", and from line where you property is choose "[Settings] under "Channel Manager" column.

From line where is Booking.com connection, under "1st Step" column click on "[Settings]" link.

Under "Hotel ID" enter your Property ID for Booking.com. You can get this number from Booking.com extranet - visible always on the top beside your property name.

Click "Update" when you have done and then on "Back" top right link to return to previous screen.

3. Map Rooms

Go to WebBookingPro admin area, from left menu choose "Hotels Management" - "Hotels Info", and from line where you property is choose "[Settings] under "Channel Manager" column.

From line where is Booking.com connection, under "3rd Step" column click on "[Settings]" link.

For each room type on WebBookingPro please select room on Booking.com. You should connect every room type on WBP with one room type on Booking.com, and there should be no room type on Booking.com not linked with some room type on WBP. This will ensure right connection.

From the right side under columnd "MAX ROOMS" you can define maximum rooms that Booking.com will recieve for each room type.

Click "Save Changes" to confirm and then "Back" to return to pervious screen.

4. Map Rates

Mapping rates is step where you connect Rates on WBP with Rates on Booking.com. In this step it is important you know how your rates are set in WBP - are they based on number of persons or per room.

For setting rates please go to 5. Rates setup.

Booking.com can have multiple "Rates" set. Usually it has always "Standard Rate", some times "Non refundable Rate" or "Flexible Rate".

WBP supports unlimited combinations how to connect each rate on Booking.com with your rates on WBP.

1. You can have just 1 Rate on WBP and you can connect with each Booking.com Rate by defining Correction based on WBP rate.
2. You can have multiple rates on WBP and you can connect each rate (that can be completely separate or with correction on Standard Rate) with each Booking.Com rate and again with addition Correction.

Go to WebBookingPro admin area, from left menu choose "Hotels Management" - "Hotels Info", and from line where you property is choose "[Settings] under "Channel Manager" column.

From line where is Booking.com connection, under "4th Step" column click on "[Settings]" link.

My Room will usually be always predefined and cannot be changed. This means for which room type Channel Rate is defined.

From My Rate column you can choose your "Standard" rate or any Additional Rate if defined.

Nr. Adults and Nr. Children. is important. With this numbers you define which Price will be used for selected Rate.

E.g. If you sell your room per room or property as whole property - where number of people is not important, you can set any number here, but if you have rates that are based on number of persons (e.g. for rates with breakfast or dinner) and you have set in your rates different rates for different number of persons (as in screenshot below)

Then we suggest you to use correct combination of adults and children for each rate.

Corection Column and Factor Column will give you ability to change this price before sending to Booking.com.

Correction is FIXED amound added or removed from Base Price (it can be positivie or negative).

Factor is Number that MULTIPLES (BASE PRICE +/- CORRECTION). It should be 1 if you do not use it! Setting 0 will send 0 as final price.

For example if your base price is 100 and you have correction +20 and factor 0.14 your final price will be

(100 + 20)x0.14 = 16.80 . With factor you can correct different currency of Booking.com rate and your Standard rate currency. Also with factor you can define changes in +/-%. E.g. For rising prices for 5% use 1.05 as Factor. For decreasing prices for 5% use 0.95 as Factor.

Again on end click on "Save Changes" and Back top right link to return to previous Screen.

5. Final Step - doing sync of availability and Rates.

Before final sync with Booking.com please check your availability for each room type - Updating Inventory Availability

and Rates - 5. Rates setup

When you are ready click on "[Full Refresh]" link under "5th Step". Wait for half a minute and then go to Extranet of Booking.com and Check every room type for its availability and rate. Check if everying is OK. Is something is not ok, you can correct Mapping and do "Full Refresh" again, or you can go to Availablitly for each room type and correct. When saving Availability from now on it will be automatically sync with Booking.com. 

Doing changes in Rates for each room type will not automatically sent prices to Booking.com but you can do it easily with "Upate Channel Rate" button on the bottom of [Prices] screen for each room type.

To manage (add or remove) OTA connection supported directly by WebBookingPro please go to

Hotel Management - Hotel Info - [Settings] under Channel Manager column.

Connecting with every OTA / Channel has specific steps and features enabled so please look for each OTA for steps to create connection.