How to sync Airbnb and Booking.com calendars with your WordPress site

If you take bookings on your own website and also list your rooms on Airbnb, Booking.com or Vrbo, you need to sync Airbnb and Booking.com calendars with your site: every booking has to close the same dates everywhere else. Do it by hand and, sooner or later, two guests arrive for the same room. The simplest way to keep calendars in step, and usually the only free one, is iCal sync. This guide explains how it works, how to set it up on a WordPress booking site, and where its limits are.

What iCal sync does, and what it doesn't

An iCal link is the address of a calendar file that lists booked and blocked dates. Most platforms give you one per listing (export) and accept links from elsewhere (import). Once two calendars have each other's links, each one reads the other at regular intervals and blocks the dates it finds.

• It syncs availability only. Dates are blocked or free. Prices, rate plans, minimum stays and guest details stay where they are.
• It works per unit. One link per room, cottage or apartment, never one link for a whole hotel.
• It isn't instant. Each side reads the other on its own schedule, so there's always a window, sometimes hours long, when a room can be booked twice.

iCal or a channel manager?

A channel manager connects to the platforms through their APIs: bookings, prices and availability move within moments, in both directions. It's the right tool for a hotel selling dozens of rooms on several platforms, and it comes with a monthly subscription.

iCal suits most independent properties: a B&B, a few vacation rentals, a small hotel that sells some rooms on Airbnb or Booking.com. It's free, works with almost every platform and takes a few minutes per room. Keep one limitation in mind: Booking.com generally offers calendar sync only for listings with a single unit. If the Sync calendars option is missing from your extranet, a room type sold as several identical rooms is the usual reason, and a channel manager is then the way to connect it.

How to sync Airbnb and Booking.com with WordPress, step by step

Pandao Booking is a free WordPress booking plugin with calendar sync built in. Each unit you create gets its own calendar link, ready to give to the platforms.

1. Turn on calendar sync. Install the plugin, then tick Calendar sync in Booking › Settings › Modules.
2. Copy your unit's link. Open Booking › Calendar sync: each unit has its own calendar address. Copy the one for the room you list on Airbnb.
3. Import it into Airbnb. In your listing's calendar settings, find the calendar sync option, choose to import a calendar, paste your link and give it a name.
4. Bring Airbnb's calendar back. In the same place, export Airbnb's calendar, copy its link and paste it into the import field of the same unit in Booking › Calendar sync.
5. Repeat for each platform. On Booking.com, look for Sync calendars in the calendar section of your extranet; on Vrbo, in your listing's calendar import and export settings. If a platform asks what to export, choose booked and closed dates, so the dates you block by hand travel too.
6. Add Google Calendar if you use it. Paste Google's secret address in iCal format to import your own events, and add your unit's link in Google Calendar under Other calendars › From URL to see your bookings there.

Your site reads every linked calendar every 30 minutes, or straight away when you ask it to. If two bookings overlap, the plugin flags it on the dashboard and on the booking calendar, so you can move one of them before the guest arrives.

How fast does it sync?

Your own site is the predictable part: Pandao Booking reads the platforms' calendars every 30 minutes, as long as WordPress runs its scheduled tasks (see the habits below). The other direction depends on each platform. Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo don't publish how often they read an imported calendar. Hosts and channel-manager companies commonly report delays of one to a few hours, and Google Calendar can take up to a day to refresh a calendar added by URL.

In practice, the risk sits in that window: a guest books on your site, and before Airbnb reads your calendar again, another guest books the same nights there. The busier your property and the more last-minute your bookings, the more that window matters.

Six habits that prevent double bookings

• One link per unit. Never give the same link to two listings, and never import a calendar into the wrong room: check the unit name before you save.
• Share blocked dates too. Pandao Booking exports the nights you close by hand; on a platform that lets you choose, include its blocked dates in the link you import, so they reach your site as well.
• Require notice on the platforms. Airbnb's advance notice, and similar settings elsewhere, stop same-day bookings there, so the riskiest bookings can only come through your own site.
• Update the links after a move. If your site changes address, or you delete and recreate a unit, give the new links to every platform.
• Make sure scheduled tasks run. On WordPress, scheduled tasks run when someone visits your site; on a quiet site, ask your host to run wp-cron.php every few minutes with a real cron job, so your site reads the platforms on time.
• Glance at the dashboard every day. Overlaps and calendars that can no longer be read show up there first.

Not using WordPress?

Our PHP booking systems include the same iCal sync. Panda Resort is a complete website and booking engine for a single hotel, and Panda Multi Resorts runs several properties on one site. In both, each room has its own calendar link, and conflicts are flagged in the room planner and by email.

Common questions

Does iCal sync prices or rates?

No. It only blocks and frees dates. Set your prices on each platform, or use a channel manager if you need them to move together.

Is calendar sync free?

Yes. The platforms don't charge for iCal sync, and Pandao Booking's Calendar sync module is part of the free plugin.

Do guest names appear on the other platforms?

No. Pandao Booking exports booked and closed nights only, with no guest names or details.

Why don't my new bookings show up on Airbnb yet?

Airbnb hasn't read your calendar again yet. Check that the link you gave it is the one for the right unit, then wait for its next refresh: you usually can't speed it up from your side.