What is a channel manager? A beginner’s guide for holiday-let hosts

Imagine you have a paper diary for your cottage, and three friends taking bookings for you — one on Airbnb, one on Booking.com, one on Vrbo. Every time one of them takes a booking, they have to ring the other two so nobody books the same night. A channel manager is that phone call, made automatically, every few minutes, day and night.

The name sounds technical, but the idea is simple. Each booking site is a “channel” — a route that guests use to find and book you. A channel manager sits in the middle and makes sure every channel shows the same dates and the same prices, all the time.

The words you’ll hear

You don’t need to learn a new language to use a channel manager, but a few words come up again and again. Here is what they mean in everyday terms.

• ChannelAny site where guests can book: Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo or your own website.
• AvailabilityWhich nights are free and which are taken.
• SyncCopying changes between sites automatically.
• Double bookingTwo guests booked for the same night on different sites.

What a channel manager does for you

Here is what happens behind the scenes when a booking comes in. You don’t have to do any of these steps yourself — that is the whole point.

1. A guest books your cottage on Booking.com.
2. The booking arrives in your channel manager within minutes.
3. Your channel manager closes those nights on Airbnb, Vrbo and your own website.
4. If you change a price, it changes on every site at once.

Two ways to connect

There are two ways to link a booking site to your channel manager. Many hosts use both: calendar links to get started quickly, and a full connection for the listings that book most often.

• Calendar links (iCal)The simple start. Each site reads a link to see your booked nights. Free and quick, but sites check it on their own schedule, so there is a short gap.
• A full connectionThe safer option for busy listings. Bookings and prices pass between sites in minutes, through an approved partner.

Do I need one?

If you only list on one site, probably not yet. As soon as you list on two — or take phone bookings too — a channel manager is what stops double bookings and saves you copying dates by hand.

The bottom line

A channel manager is not about being techy. It is about not having to remember to copy a booking from one site to another at ten o’clock at night, and never having to tell a family their stay has been double-booked.

If you are listing on more than one site, start simple: get every booking onto one calendar, connect your sites, and let the software do the copying for you.