Why properties use it, and what to watch
iCalendar is an open format (published by the IETF as RFC 5545), so a calendar link needs no contract with the booking site and costs nothing. That makes it the usual way for a homestay or a small hotel to keep Airbnb, Booking.com and its own calendar from selling the same room twice.
Three limits come with it:
- Delay. A site reads another's feed on its own schedule, not the instant a booking happens, so there is always a gap in which a room can sell twice.
- Dates only. Prices, minimum stays and other restrictions have to be set on each site separately.
- Silent failure. If a feed stops being read — an expired link, a changed listing — bookings stop blocking, and nothing on the booking site says so.
Example
A homestay lists its Garden Room on Airbnb and Booking.com. A guest books the 14th to the 16th on Airbnb. The property's system reads Airbnb's feed and blocks those nights; its own feed now shows them booked, and when Booking.com next reads that feed, it closes those nights there. Two hops, each on its own schedule.
How Nivasik handles it
- Two-way calendar sync with Airbnb and Booking.com: their bookings block the room in Nivasik, and Nivasik's bookings block it there.
- A channel whose calendar could not be read is flagged on the Channel Manager screen.
- Every calendar read, every booking imported and every failure is logged. A feed link can be replaced if it has leaked.
- An imported booking arrives without a rate; you can put one on it in Reservations if you want it counted in revenue.