Marketing tips
How to use Travelnest's ‘Calendar Sync’ effectively
5 Mar 2025
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By Sophie Eminson
Keeping your bookings organised is essential when managing a successful vacation rental. At Travelnest, we understand the challenges of juggling listings across multiple platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com. That’s why we’ve developed our powerful ‘Calendar Sync’ feature. This tool ensures your Travelnest calendar seamlessly reflects bookings from other platforms, preventing double bookings and making your workflow smoother than ever. This article explores how to use the calendar sync feature effectively with actionable tips, so you can make the most out of Travelnest’s industry-leading solution.
What is the Travelnest ‘Calendar Sync’ feature?
The calendar sync feature allows you to synchronise your Travelnest calendar with other booking platforms, such as Airbnb or Booking.com, using iCal. This ensures that any new bookings, date changes, or cancellations across these platforms are automatically reflected in your Travelnest calendar. Not only does this reduce the risk of double bookings, but it also helps you manage your availability more efficiently.
When you connect your calendars using iCal, you’ll enjoy hourly updates across platforms that ensure real-time accuracy of your booking data. With this tool onboard, you gain confidence knowing your operations are running smoothly.
1. Only sync calendars from external vacation rental sites
Stick to syncing calendars from external sources such as Airbnb, Booking.com, or Vrbo to keep things simple and streamlined. For personal appointments or non-rental-related events, avoid syncing with Travelnest to prevent mistakenly blocking dates.
Tip: Manage personal appointments separately using a dedicated personal calendar to maintain clean and clear availability on Travelnest.
2. Follow Travelnest’s step-by-step guide
Travelnest provides a comprehensive guide on how to synchronise your calendar. This step-by-step tutorial walks you through the entire process of importing and exporting calendar links for seamless integration. Here’s a brief overview of the steps involved:
Log in to your Travelnest account and access the ‘Calendar’ section.
Export your Travelnest calendar link to Airbnb or Booking.com.
Import calendar links from those platforms into Travelnest.
Complete both the import and export steps to ensure all bookings and availability are synced consistently.
3. Regularly review your calendar dates
A synced calendar doesn't eliminate the need for periodic reviews. By checking availability and blocked dates regularly, you can quickly identify discrepancies; for example, dates that should be blocked but remain open.
Travelnest’s property optimisation experts are just a call away to help fine-tune your operations. Scheduling an optimisation call ensures your dates are correctly reflected and improves your overall listing performance.
Tip: Make it a habit to review your calendar at the start of each week or after any significant changes to your listings.
4. Proactively update blocked dates
While iCal sync captures booking information, manually blocked dates might not always sync perfectly. For instance, if you block dates directly from your Airbnb account, those dates may not automatically appear blocked in Travelnest.
To avoid double bookings, always block dates manually in your Travelnest calendar whenever they don’t reflect as unavailable after syncing.
Tip: For a hassle-free experience, manually block personal or maintenance days directly within Travelnest to align all calendars.
5. Initiate exports first for a smooth process
When setting up your synchronisation, start by exporting your Travelnest calendar link first. Once you've imported links from other platforms, you’ll notice the status update to “Awaiting first sync attempt.” This means your sync setup is nearly complete, and bookings should begin reflecting on your Travelnest calendar shortly.
Syncs typically update every hour, so allow some time for newly added bookings to appear.
6. Avoid duplicate listings
If you list a property with external platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com but also advertise it via Travelnest, make sure to deselect those platforms in your ‘Marketing’ or ‘Channels’ section. This prevents duplicate listings and ensures a seamless integration.
Questions? We’ve got answers
Here are some of the most common questions property managers ask about Travelnest's calendar sync feature:
1. What happens if I manually block dates in Airbnb but not in Travelnest?
If you manually block dates in Airbnb, those dates won’t reflect as blocked in Travelnest unless the calendars are synced. To ensure one cohesive calendar, manually block unavailable dates within Travelnest when necessary.
2. Do I need to sync calendars if I list properties exclusively through Travelnest?
No. If Travelnest manages your bookings across all selected platforms, there’s no need to set up additional calendar syncs. Your Travelnest calendar will automatically reflect bookings from the selected platforms.
3. What are the consequences of not syncing my calendars?
Unsynced calendars increase the risk of double bookings, which can lead to cancelled bookings and potential penalties outlined in Travelnest’s terms and conditions.
For more guidance, visit the Travelnest Help Centre for support articles or reach out to our customer service team.
Maximise your bookings with Travelnest
By mastering Travelnest's calendar sync feature, you’ll simplify calendar management, avoid costly errors, and keep your calendar in perfect sync across platforms. Why stress over manual updates when iCal does all the heavy lifting for you? Start using this feature today and experience a smoother, smarter way to manage availability.
