I am making a site for Holiday Rental Cottages.
My client already uses Airbnb for booking.
I am concerned that if I build in a booking/payment page in the new website it will create the possibility for double bookings.
Has anyone worked arouynd this? For example is there a sort of cental booking system that all bookings can be recorded to?
Thanks for any advice
I would think that you would need to keep all the bookings at Airbnb. I don’t think they would reach out to another location to see if the listing is still available.
Couldn’t you just add the Airbnb listing to your site?
I am about to implement this script into a b&b site: Rental Property Booking Calendar | PHPJabbers
The business also uses Airbnb and the idea would be that when a booking comes through from Airbnb, the business owner would login to the script and manually block out those dates.
You’re right, having two or more booking systems in place will lead into a mess at the end. It’s almost 100% sure 
The simplest solution would be integrating the listings like @teefers sugested, or using a third party service like travelnest. They add some charges on top and have various implementions.
And how does it work the other way round? While the BO doesn’t update the calendar, the property is listed as available and might get booked via your site for a slot that was already booked via airb’nb?
Well it depends on how many bookings you are getting I suppose. And how much work the BO wants to spend on it.
The business that I am doing it for only takes a handful of bookings a month and only has 2 rooms so it’s easily managed.
I might then go for the „embed your listing“ route of Airbnb.
(I really thought there’s an Stack for that. Time to build one 
)
For what it’s worth, I’ve had two clients go this route, with the same script. Both started with great intentions of manually keeping things in sync, both failed to keep on top of the updates and eventually pulled the script.
Thanks all for the invaluble input.
So the client has requested that I take reservation requests on the site.
The confirmation email can link to a hidden payment page.
Like this site
I’ve got Yuzool Booking stack and Checkout stack, so I can do this. But anyone hgave any better ideas?
Thanks!
Questions to consider…
My guess is, most of this is going to have to be done manually? If so, I’d suggest the user experience is going to be poor, and that is going to reflect on the business.
Nowdays, people expect these things to work in real-time, with automatic booking etc. The days of people happy to send in a “request”, then wait for hours/days for a reply are gone. Users want to get this stuff sorted instantly then move on. Not sit and wait for a reply that their dates are available and how much it’s going to cost, before then arranging their trip.
IMO, your client is not thinking through the entire user experience, or taking into account what users expect nowadays. But of course, other than what you’ve posted here I know nothing of the userbase or client, so it could be this sort of “old skool” approach is entirely acceptable.
Hi TR thanks so much for your input.
I hear what you are saying. But I think the problem is that Airbnb only allow a max of 90 days a year per property. The reamining days must be rented /paid for another way. My client has 3 properties that are rented /rentable throught the year.
Yes my client would have to send a confirming email that includes the payment link. Yes this would mean no INSTANT purchase. I dont see a way around it as I feel allowing them to book from the site whithout the owners input would lead to even more problems
My understanding is that that limit varies by location, and that limit is a legal limit placed on the property owner. They don’t care how or what agent rents the place, and the host (owner) is responsible for fines.
Local authorities around the world have started pushing back against short term rentals and home-sharing (without the host present).
Airbnb Regulations in Major Cities across the US and Europe (getpaidforyourpad.com)
@Figo This comment is along the lines of @teefers . It’s not that Airbnb chose to put the limits, this is dictated by the city or region the housing is located. … and more importantly, the owner of the properties knows this very well. There are a number of choice words I could use for such an owner but I’ll refrain from swearing online. I realize this is a paying gig for you … but be careful of the devil you choose to dance with. Perhaps there’s a legit explanation for all this … but sounds fishy right now.
Hi there. Here’s a subject on which I can speak with at least some authority!
we run a B&B on our farm and use airbnb, booking.com and VRBO as well as our own direct site. Double bookings are a real issue once you get beyond one booking site. You effectively need to build a real time message hub and we decided to implement Siteminder for this as it connects all but one of our channels (vrbo is in progress) as well as giving us a direct booking embed into our RW site. It costs us per month but the siteminder product updates the other channels within seconds and we leave all the availability issues to them. For the peace of mind, it is worth it and I spend more time on the bits I can really influence on my site. Hope this helps!
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