How to Connect Your Airbnb Calendar to Vrbo

Listing your vacation rental property on multiple short-term rental OTAs like Airbnb and Booking.com and taking direct bookings from your vacation rental website is essential to increase occupancy and revenue in today’s competitive market. But this also leads to double bookings.

Synchronizing your calendars across your booking platforms helps prevent double bookings and enables smooth operations across the different channels.

What is a Double Booking?

Double bookings occur when two or more guests book your property on the same day/time, or when two bookings overlap, requiring you to cancel one.

Why Should You Connect Your Airbnb and Vrbo Calendars?

If you list your short-term rental property on both Airbnb and Vrbo you must connect your calendars to sync your bookings from both platforms and prevent double booking.

This is the key aspect of channel management.

How to Connect Your Airbnb Calendar to Vrbo

1. Import your Airbnb calendar into Vrbo

The most basic way to connect your calendars is to import your Airbnb calendar into Vrbo using iCalendar (iCal).

This takes at least a few hours to sync if not more. It is also not fully reliable and often still leads to double bookings.

To export your Airbnb calendar into Vrbo using iCal:

1. Go to Listings on your Airbnb dashboard and select the listing you want

2. Go to Pricing and Availability > Calendar sync

3. Click Export calendar

4. In the Export calendar window, copy the link

5. Go to your Vrbo account and select the listing

6. Click Calendars in the left navigation menu, then click Reservation

7. Click the Import/Export icon and click Import Calendar

8. Name your calendar (for example, Airbnb) and choose a color

9. Paste your Airbnb calendar link

10. Make sure the calendar is set to block your calendar availability

11. Click Import Calendar

2. Import your Vrbo calendar into Airbnb

You can also use iCal to import your Vrbo calendar into Airbnb.

This can take just as long as the other way round and can be just as reliable.

To export your Vrbo calendar into Airbnb:

1. Go to your Vrbo account and select the listing you want

2. Click Calendars in the left navigation menu, then click Reservation

3. Click the Import/Export icon and click Export Calendar

4. In the Export calendar window, copy the link

5. Go to Listing and select the listing you want

6. Go to Pricing and availability > Calendar sync

7. Click Import calendar

8. Copy the link into the Calendar address field

9. Name the calendar (for example, Vrbo)

10. Click Import calendar

3. Use Hostaway’s channel manager

The best way to sync your calendars across Airbnb, Vrbo and multiple other platforms including your direct booking website is Hostaway.

Highly reliable and easy to use, Hostaway’s channel manager offers a robust 2-way API connection to all major OTAs, updating reservation data in real-time and preventing double bookings. It also allows you to update other information like pricing, minimum night rules, fees, etc, so you can easily manage multiple listings and avoid the pitfalls.

Channel Management: The Path Forward to Maximize Bookings and Sync Calendars

Effectively managing your booking calendars across platforms in real-time is key to increasing bookings and income without the painful cost of double bookings. With Hostaway’s proven channel manager you can not only sync your calendars but streamline reservation management and create a positive guest experience to set you up for vacation rental success.