A website for a hotel or guest house with Airbnb and Booking.com integration

In short: Your own website lets a hotel or guest house accept direct bookings alongside Airbnb and Booking.com. Calendars can be synchronised with iCal (simpler, but with a delay) or with a channel manager, in which prices and availability are managed in one place for the connected channels; a WordPress site needs a booking plugin.

If you own a hotel, guest house or holiday apartment, you have most likely already heard of Airbnb and Booking.com – the sites where people most often book accommodation.
But it is important to understand that relying only on these platforms is not a long-term solution. Your own website is the safest and most cost-effective way to manage bookings, guests and revenue.

In this article we explain how to build a website for a hotel or guest house with a booking system that can work with the big platforms, and we also explain what iCal and a channel manager actually are – two terms that may seem complicated at first but are in fact simple.

Platforms such as Booking.com and Airbnb certainly help attract guests, but they have their downsides:

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  they charge a commission or service fee on bookings (the amount depends on the platform, the fee model and the contract);

  
  
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  guest contact information is limited (Airbnb shows the guest’s phone number only after the booking is confirmed);

  
  
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  you cannot control how your accommodation, prices or availability are shown.

  
  

Your own website, on the other hand, lets you:

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  accept direct bookings without commission;

  
  
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  receive payments automatically;

  
  
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  show more photos, descriptions and additional services;

  
  
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  build your own brand and guest base.

  
  

Now to the most important question – how to make your hotel or guest house website “get along” with Airbnb and Booking.com, so that you do not have to update calendars manually.

Airbnb and iCal – what is it?

The Airbnb API is not intended for connecting a website directly — listings are connected to other systems via management software connected to Airbnb (for example, a channel manager). However, Airbnb does offer an iCal calendar.

What is iCal?
iCal (from “iCalendar”) is a simple file format that lets calendars be synchronised between different systems.
For example: if someone books your apartment on Airbnb, the booking also appears in your website’s calendar. And vice versa – if someone books through your website, the date is also blocked on Airbnb.

But iCal is not perfectly accurate. Data is not updated instantly: for example, Airbnb automatically refreshes calendars imported from other sites every 3 hours, while how often other systems read the Airbnb calendar is determined by those systems. That is why double bookings can occasionally happen. So for larger hotels or busy accommodation, we recommend a professional solution – a channel manager.

A channel manager is exactly what the name says – a system that “manages channels”.
It connects your website, Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and other portals in one place.
You enter a price or availability in one system, and it is updated automatically everywhere else.

For example:

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  someone books via Booking.com → the calendar is automatically blocked on Airbnb and on your website too;

  
  
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  you change the price on your website → the same price appears on the other platforms too.

  
  

This way you:

• avoid double bookings;
• save time;
• control prices across all channels.

Here are some of the best-known solutions that also work in Latvia:

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  Guesty – one of the most popular solutions used by Airbnb hosts. It also offers automated communication with guests.

  
  
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  D-EDGE – suitable for larger hotels; connects Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb and others.

  
  
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  Smoobu – a very convenient and easy-to-understand solution for smaller guest houses and apartments.

  
  
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  Beds24 – versatile, with many integrations and extensive customisation options.

  
  
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  Lodgify – combines building a website, a booking system and a channel manager in one place.

  
  

All these tools let you synchronise calendars, prices, availability and in some cases guest data too.

If your website is built with WordPress, you can accept bookings with a booking plugin. Whether a specific plugin connects to the channel manager you have chosen has to be checked in the documentation of both. Examples:

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  MotoPress Hotel Booking

  
  
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  WP Booking System

  
  
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  Bookly (intended for service appointments; in the Pro version appointments can be exported in iCal format, for example to your own calendar — this is not accommodation availability synchronisation)

  
  
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  HBook

  
  

Depending on the plugin, they let you:

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  show available dates;

  
  
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  accept bookings with prepayment;

  
  
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  send email confirmations automatically;

  
  
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  synchronise accommodation availability with Airbnb, Booking.com, etc. via iCal (MotoPress Hotel Booking and WP Booking System – in the paid version; HBook – a paid plugin).

  
  

We will build you a website with a booking system that:

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  can synchronise availability with Booking.com and Airbnb (via iCal or a channel manager);

  
  
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  lets you accept payments by card or bank transfer;

  
  
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  is fully tailored to your needs and language;

  
  
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  helps reduce dependence on intermediary platforms.

  
  

Our aim is for you to be able to sell directly without losing out on commissions and time.

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  A website can be synchronised with Airbnb via an iCal calendar or via management software connected to Airbnb (a channel manager).

  
  
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  The Booking.com API is intended for Booking.com Connectivity Partners. For accommodation, it is usually easier to connect to Booking.com via a channel manager.

  
  
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  A channel manager is a system that automatically synchronises your calendar and prices across all channels.

  
  
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  The best solution – a WordPress website with a booking plugin and a channel manager connection.

  
  

Write to us at CREATING.LV – we will explain how to build a site that earns money for you, not just for Booking.com.

Related: Website development · WordPress plugins · WPML or Polylang for a multilingual website.