Airbnb calendar: Sync with Booking.com, Google Calendar & others

Managing your Airbnb calendar

Your Airbnb calendar is one of the most important parts of your listings. It helps you keep track of your reservations and allows guests to see your availability. 

To ensure accuracy and to avoid lost revenue, it’s crucial to keep your calendar up-to-date. However, when you’re managing your rooms across multiple channels it can be difficult to stay on top of everything.

The answer to avoiding any potential issues is to sync your Airbnb calendar with your other calendars, such as Booking.com. This blog will show you how.

First things first though, how to find and use your calendar.

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How to find your Airbnb calendar

To find your Airbnb calendar login to your extranet and access your host dashboard. You should be able to click on ‘calendar’ in the top right corner. 

After that you can select listings and choose to take actions, such as syncing or exporting your calendar.

How to use your Airbnb calendar

Once you have found your calendar, you can use it to update the status of your property.

From your calendar you can choose a listing and then ‘Edit availability’. You can then toggle an option to mark particular nights as open or blocked. This allows guests to easily know when they can and can’t book your property or room.

You can also use the calendar function to link calendars between multiple listings and sync your Airbnb calendar with the calendars of other channels.

Why is the Airbnb calendar sync important?

Airbnb calendar synchronisation is important for a few reasons, but it all boils down to making sure your information is always accurate and current.

If a guest on Booking.com and a guest on Airbnb book a stay for the same room, on the same dates, at the same time you end up with guest confusion, frustration, and possible reputation damage.

Double bookings often lead to cancelled reservations and can have a direct impact on your ratings and reviews. If your reputation drops, it negatively impacts your ability to win future business.

Prioritising calendar syncing will help you maintain a positive relationship with guests and keep the bookings rolling in.

The main priority was to eliminate overbooking. Things are much better. We have about 90% less double-bookings.

Boonchai Prombunjong,

Hotel Operator

U Residence Krabi Hotel

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Tips for Airbnb calendar management

When managing your Airbnb calendar there a few best practices to follow:

• Always sync your Airbnb calendars with any other calendars you may be using, such as Booking.com, Google, or Apple
• If you have more than one Airbnb listing, make sure their calendars are also linked
• Remember to keep your host calendar updated, preferably by setting it to update automatically
• Mark popular dates on your calendar that revolve around holidays or events to increase bookings
• Control availability by marking dates as unavailable when you need to perform maintenance or if you won’t be able to accept any guests for any personal reason

Airbnb calendar and Booking.com synchronisation

The first and most basic way to sync your Airbnb and Booking.com calendars is to connect them manually. The good news is that both services use the same calendar format, iCal, which means that there’s no need to transform or convert the data.

The bad news is that this method demands that you manually connect every OTA (online travel agency like Booking.com, Expedia, etc.) you use to every other OTA, a process that you have to do twice for every pair. For Airbnb and Booking.com, that process is as follows.

How to sync your Airbnb calendar with Booking.com

1. Go to your Airbnb dashboard and click on ‘Listings’.
2. Select the relevant listing, then click on ‘Pricing and Availability’ and scroll down to the ‘Calendar sync’ section.
3. Click ‘Export calendar’ and copy the website address (URL) that pops up.
4. Navigate to your Booking.com account, click on ‘Rates & Availability’, then ‘Calendar’, then ‘Sync calendars’.
5. Click ‘Add calendar connection’, paste in the URL.
6. Name it, and follow the prompts to sync.

How to sync your Booking.com calendar with Airbnb

1. Go to your Booking.com account.
2. Navigate to the ‘Calendar’ screen and copy your Booking.com iCal link.
3. Navigate to your Airbnb dashboard and click on ‘Listings’.
4. Select the relevant listing, then click on ‘Pricing and Availability’ and scroll down to the ‘Calendar sync’ section.
5. Click ‘Import calendar’ and paste in your calendar link from Booking.com.
6. Name it then click on ‘Import calendar’.

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How to sync Airbnb and booking calendars like Apple or Google Calendar

Syncing your Airbnb calendar with your Google or Apple calendar is much the same process as syncing Airbnb and Booking.com. Simply import your other calendars via their URLs:

1. Access your Airbnb host login
2. Go to ‘Menu’ and click ‘Listings’
3. Select any Airbnb listing then click ‘Pricing and availability’
4. Look for ‘Calendar sync’ and click ‘Export calendar’
5. Copy the link provided
6. Open your Google Calendar
7. Scroll down on the left panel until you see ‘Other calendars’
8. Select the plus ‘+’ sign beside ‘Other calendars’ and click ‘From URL’
9. Paste the link copied from your Airbnb listing then click the button ‘Add calendar’
10. Rename the Airbnb calendar import into the name of your listing

Once you’ve completed these steps, all your calendars will be in sync. However, the complexity grows with every OTA you add – you need to manually create connections using similar processes for every new channel. Soon you may find yourself needing to create dozens of such connections whenever you want to list somewhere new.

This method also lacks a centralised calendar purpose-built to handle listings across multiple channels. You instead need to view your multi-channel listing through the lens of Booking.com, Airbnb or another OTA. Sure, you can sync with your Google Calendar, but then your bookings will mix in with all your other business and property admin, making for a messy sight.

But there is a better way…

What is the best way to link Airbnb and Booking.com?

The best way to link your Airbnb calendar and Booking.com is with a channel manager; a tool that allows you to control the pricing, availability, listing and distribution of your property across any number of OTAs and booking sites at the same time. 

Channel managers are designed to bring all the information from various booking sites together in one place in order to greatly simplify the task of managing your online listings.

The best channel managers can automate much of the busy work involved in managing online listings. They are able to update multiple listings at once, and can ensure your availability is maximised and your pricing is set at the perfect level. A good channel manager will fully integrate with your hotel property management system, or even be an extension of that system.

With OTA bookings now forming the bulk of reservations for most hoteliers, the importance of utilising a quality channel manager is only increasing.

By Dean Elphick

Dean is the Senior Content Marketing Specialist of Little Hotelier, the all-in-one software solution purpose-built to make the lives of small accommodation providers easier. Dean has made writing and creating content his passion for the entirety of his professional life, which includes more than six years at Little Hotelier. Through content, Dean aims to provide education, inspiration, assistance, and, ultimately, value for small accommodation businesses looking to improve the way they run their operations (and live their life).