If you’re considering listing your vacation rental on more than one site, you may be wondering how you can prevent double bookings. When you get a reservation on one site, you need to manually block those dates on your other sites, right? Thanks to the iCal calendar sync functionality, you actually do not need to manually block dates on your calendars at all. The iCal sync ensures your calendars are up-to-date on all of your connected sites automatically.
In this article, we’ll explain how you can set up iCal connections between Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and any other vacation rental site you use. Once the connections are in place, you can enjoy peace of mind and spend your valuable time on other things.
How do I set up an iCal connection?
First things first: what is an iCal connection? An iCal connection essentially copies the availability from one calendar to another. iCal connections are useful in many situations, not just vacation rentals. For example, you could have an iCal connection for your child’s school holidays, your tennis matches, or your friend’s band’s gigs. Whenever these external calendars make updates, those updates will appear on your calendar automatically.
In a vacation rental context, we want to connect your Airbnb calendar to your Vrbo calendar, for example, and vice versa. This way, whenever you receive an Airbnb booking, those dates will automatically become unavailable on Vrbo. And whenever you receive a Vrbo booking, those dates will close on Airbnb. In order to set up the connection, you need to import the external site’s calendar, and you also need to export the source calendar to the external site.
What is an iCalendar feed URL?
All this importing and exporting would not be possible without the iCal URL. This is the “key” that links the two calendars. The iCal link is usually quite long with a lot of letters and numbers.
Each iCal link is tied to one specific property, so if you manage multiple properties, you’ll have a unique iCal link for each one.
How do I get my iCal link on Airbnb?
In order to sync your Airbnb calendar with any other calendars, you need your iCal link.
On Airbnb, your iCal link is found in the “Availability” settings of the host dashboard.
Scroll down to the “Sync Calendars” section, where you’ll find options to Import Calendar and Export Calendar.
Click “Export Calendar” to see your unique iCal link, which you’ll copy and paste into an external site to link the Airbnb calendar to that site.
Click “Import Calendar” to paste in an external iCal link, such as a Vrbo iCal link, which will sync that external calendar with your Airbnb calendar.
How do I sync my Airbnb calendar with my cleaners, personal calendar, or someone else?
The great thing about iCal links is you can export and import them anywhere! To allow your cleaning team to see your Airbnb reservation calendar, for example, simply send them your Airbnb’s iCal link (found by clicking the “Export Calendar” link as detailed above). They can then import the calendar into their iPhone’s iCal app, Outlook, Google Calendar, or any other calendar software they use.
How do I get my iCal link on Booking.com?
You’ll need your iCal link to sync your Booking.com calendar with a calendar from another site.
Log into the Booking.com extranet and navigate to the Calendar screen (under the Rates & Availability tab) for your property.
You’ll see a link that says “Sync Calendar” next to the name of your property or next to the name of each room type if you have multiple units on the same listing. Please note that the iCal sync is only available on Booking.com if you do not have a channel manager connected.
Click “Export Calendar” to see your unique iCal link, which you’ll copy and paste into an external site to link the Booking.com calendar to that site.
Click “Import Calendar” to paste in an external iCal link, such as an Airbnb iCal link, which will sync that external calendar with your Booking.com calendar.
How do I get my iCal link on Vrbo?
Your Vrbo iCal link is essential to building iCal connections between Vrbo, Booking.com, Airbnb, and more.
Once you’re in your property dashboard and have selected the property you want to connect, select the “Calendar” tab and click on “Reservations.”
Now you’re looking at your reservation calendar. In the top right corner of the calendar, click “Import/Export.”
Click “Import Calendar” to paste in an external iCal link, such as an Airbnb iCal link, which will sync that external calendar with your Vrbo calendar. You can choose a color for this calendar to make it easier to identify.
To find your Vrbo iCal link, click “Export Calendar.” You can choose whether to include inquiries, which means that inquiries will block calendar dates in the same way reservations do. It’s an extra precaution against double bookings, but if you receive a lot of inquiries that don’t turn into bookings, then it might hurt your availability on other sites. Copy and paste this link into an external site to connect the Vrbo calendar to that site.
How do I manage Airbnb, Booking.com, and Vrbo calendars?
If you list on all three sites, you’ll definitely want to sync all of the calendars. You will need to get the iCal links for your three listings first. We recommend opening your Airbnb host dashboard, your Booking.com extranet page, and your Vrbo owner portal at the same time so you can easily copy and paste the calendar links.
Once you have opened each site and found your iCal export links, then you can import the links on each of the two external sites. Follow this checklist to make sure you don’t forget any sites:
- Paste Airbnb iCal link in Booking.com settings
- Paste Airbnb iCal link in Vrbo settings
- Paste Booking.com iCal link in Airbnb settings
- Paste Booking.com iCal link in Vrbo settings
- Paste Vrbo iCal link in Airbnb settings
- Paste Vrbo iCal link in Booking.com settings
How do I manage Airbnb and Vrbo calendars?
If you have listings on Airbnb and Vrbo, you’ll follow a similar process, but without linking a Booking.com calendar:
- Paste Airbnb iCal link in Vrbo settings
- Paste Vrbo iCal link in Airbnb settings
Can you sync Airbnb and Booking.com calendars?
If you have listings on Airbnb and Booking.com, follow this process to connect the two calendars:
- Paste Airbnb iCal link in Booking.com settings
- Paste Booking.com iCal link in Airbnb settings
How do I sync iCal with Google Calendar?
You might be wondering how you can add an Airbnb, Booking.com, or Vrbo calendar to your Google Calendar. Or, maybe you use a Google Calendar to keep track of personal usage of your property, so you want events on your Google calendar to show up on Airbnb, Booking.com, and/or Vrbo.
Google Calendar works exactly the same way as Airbnb, Booking.com, and Vrbo do. You can paste your Google Calendar export link into your Airbnb, Booking.com, or Vrbo settings, depending on whether you need to export Google Calendar events. You can also import Airbnb, Booking.com, or Vrbo calendars into your Google Calendar, depending on whether or not you need them to show up there.
These controls are found in the Settings menu of your Google Calendar. In Settings, select the name of the calendar you want to export from the left side.
Click on “Integrate Calendar” to find the iCal link. It’s in the “Secret Address” box. Simply copy and paste it into the site where you want your Google Calendar events to show up.
To import an iCal in Google Calendar, find the “Other Calendars” section, which is usually in the bottom left corner of the screen. Click the + to add a new calendar “From URL.”
Paste your Airbnb, Booking.com, or Vrbo link into this box. It does not need to be made publicly accessible.
Do you have any other questions about syncing your Airbnb, Booking.com, and Vrbo calendars via iCal connections? We’d love to hear from you.
