If your vacation rental property is only listed on one OTA then syncing calendars isn’t a problem for you… yet.
Eventually, you’ll probably want to list your property on more OTAs. After all, the more fishing lines you have in the water, the more chances you have of catching a fish. 🙂
Once you do list on more than one OTA, syncing calendars becomes really important.
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Why Do You Need To Sync Your Vacation Rental Calendars?
Well, you don’t… unless you have your property listed on more than one OTA.
If your property is listed on more than one OTA then the main reason for syncing calendars is to prevent double bookings.
Unless you sync calendars between the OTAs, one OTA doesn’t know what the other is doing.
Let’s say you’re listed on VRBO and Airbnb and you’re not syncing calendars between them.
Woohoo! You just got a booking on VRBO for July 4th, unfortunately, Airbnb has no idea that your July 4th is booked on VRBO so it still shows that holiday as available on Airbnb.
Without syncing the calendars there is a chance that Airbnb would also book July 4th for you, and THAT WOULD BE A PROBLEM!
Syncing your calendars will significantly reduce the chances of that happening.
How We Initially Kept Track Of Bookings – The Wrong Way
We started on VRBO (back then it was HomeAway) and after a few months, we added the property to Airbnb. Somewhere along the line, it occurred to me that Airbnb had no idea about the VRBO bookings and I found a way to import the VRBO calendar on Airbnb. Basically, I started using my VRBO calendar as a master calendar.
When I got an Airbnb booking I blocked the dates on the VRBO calendar manually.
As time passed I listed the property on other OTAs (Flipkey, GlampingHub to name a few), with the same setup. I imported the VRBO calendar on the OTA sites and would manually block the dates on the VRBO calendar when they came in from the other OTAs.
We did this for a looong time and it worked, but it relied on us remembering and manually blocking dates on the VRBO calendar.
If only I knew I could have done a little more legwork and I would no longer have to manually block the non-VRBO bookings on the calendar.
The Right Way To Sync Short Term Rental Calendars
If you’re using a management site to manage your listings then this info probably doesn’t apply to you. The management site will probably be your master calendar and you’ll sync your OTA calendars to it.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about and you have your property listed on more than one OTA then this info is for you.
Basically, what you’ll be doing is copying the calendar export URL (aka ics file or ical file) from one OTA and pasting it into the import area of all the other OTAs.
What’s an ICS or iCal File?
The export link is a URL to an ics or ical file. The ics file is a text file formatted in a special way that lists the dates that OTA has booked for your property.
Whenever OTA #1 has a booking or cancellation it will update it’s file with the booking changes.
When you paste OTA #1’s export URL in the import area of OTA #2, OTA #2 will periodically check the URL for changes.
Every site automatically checks for changes to the calendar file. Once you give it the URL to check the file it handles the rest.
An Example Syncing With Two OTA Listings
If you’re listed on two OTAs, let’s say VRBO and Airbnb. It’s pretty simple:
To sync VRBO and Airbnb Calendars
To sync VRBO and Airbnb Calendars, this is all you need to do.
Open both listings in different browser tabs then:
- Copy the calendar export URL from VRBO and paste it into the import calendar area on Airbnb
- Copy the calendar export URL from Airbnb and paste it into the import calendar area on VRBO
With step 1 completed, VRBO will let Airbnb know about changes it has.
With step 2, Airbnb will let VRBO know about its changes.
That’s it you’re done. They both now know about each other’s calendars!
An Example Syncing With Four OTA Listings
The more OTAs you have your property listed on, the more complcated it gets.
If you’re listed on four OTAs it gets easier to lose track, let’s say you use VRBO, Airbnb, Flipkey and Glampinghub.
Here’s a graphical representation of what syncing those calendars correctly looks like.
Now I know that diagram looks like craziness. The point is, each OTA needs to know about every other OTA calendar.
Setting this up can be confusing, mostly because you can easily lose track of which you did last.
But once it’s done, you won’t have to think about this again.
At the end I’ll have tips on how to keep track of everything while you’re going through it… and don’t worry it’ll be easier than trying to figure out that picture. 🙂
Finding The Calendar Export Link
Any site that accepts bookings usually also has a way to export their calendar and import other OTA calendars. It’s usually on the page where you find the calendar for that OTA.
The import and export sections will most likely be in the same general calendar area.
Below are directions for finding the VRBO and Airbnb Import/Export options but for other OTAs you should be able to find similar options on the calendar page.
If not, you can reach out to their support or do a search in their help area for “sync calendar”.
Where To Find The VRBO Calendar Export URL
The VRBO import and export area is pretty easy to find.
Click Calendars, then Reservations on the Main Menu. That’ll bring you to the calendar page.
Click the Import/Export option located above the calendar.
When you click Import/Export you’ll get a dialog where you can select Import calendar or Export calendar.
Clicking Export calendar gives you a link to the VRBO calendar URL. You’ll paste that URL into the import calendar of all the other OTAs.
Import calendar is where you click to add the calendar URLS of the other OTAs.
All you need to do is paste the other OTAs calendar URL and give it a name. Easy Peasy.
Where To Find The Airbnb Calendar Export URL
Airbnb’s Import/Export is a little trickier to find.
Click on Listing on the menu bar.
Click on the listing that you want to sync
Click on Availability on the Listing’s Menu
Scroll to the bottom and you’ll see a Sync Calendars section with two options Import Calendar and Export Calendar
Import Calendar is where you’ll go to add other OTA calendar URLs to Airbnb
Export Calendar is the URL to Airbnb’s calendar file. That’s the URL you’ll add to the other OTA’s Import Calendar section.
How To Keep Track Of Everything
If you have more than 2 listings, the biggest gotcha is trying to keep track of what you added where. So here’s a simple way to keep track of it along with a process to methodically go through it.
Let’s start by opening either excel or Google Sheets (which is free).
1 – Make A List Of Your OTA Sites
First start by listing the name of every OTA you have your property listed on.
For my example I have 5 OTAs – VRBO, Airbnb, Flipkey, GlampingHub, and Houfy.
(Imagine what that syncing diagram would look like) lol
2 – Add The Export Calendar URL For Each
Now Get the export calendar URL for each and put it into column B.
3 – Import Each Calendar URL To All OTAs
You now have a complete list of the Calendar Export URLs for all your OTAs.
The next step is to add the Export URLs into each of the OTAs import calendar section.
The best way to go through this process is in order.
In my example I would start with vrbo.
I’d go to the import calendar section of vrbo and paste the URL for airbnb, flipkey, glampinghub and houfy in it.
Then I would go to the import calendar section of airbnb, and paste the URL for vrbo, flipkey, glampinghub and houfy.
And keep going down the list until I was done. Now you have everything syncing with everything else!
Your Calendars Are Now Syncing
Syncing calendars felt a little overwhelming before I start doing it.
But once I understood that each OTA has a calendar export URL and that URL needs to be pasted into all other OTA’s import section it made much more sense.
Then it was just a matter of keeping track of what I was doing.
In this post we went over:
- what it means to sync your calendars
- why you should sync calendars
- how to sync your vacation rental calendars without losing your mind. 😉
Hopefully, this post helped you sync all your calendars.
If there’s something you’re having a problem with or if you have a question I didn’t cover let me know in the comments below!
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