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Switching from connection via a channel manager to a direct connection with Guesty

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If you previously connected to booking channels through a channel manager or Property Management System (PMS), you can easily switch to direct integration via Guesty. This allows you to connect directly to your booking channels or Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), streamlining your operations and enhancing efficiency.

By managing all your bookings through Guesty, you can coordinate your reservations, pricing, and availability more efficiently, while enjoying all the advantages of using the Guesty platform.

Learn how to migrate your listings from a former integration with a PMS to a Guesty-OTA integration, and sync your reservations and additional data between the two platforms.

Before you begin

Not all of your existing information can be migrated to Guesty, and not all data can be synced between Guesty and the booking channels.

  • Read the information below related to each booking channel, to understand what data can be migrated to Guesty.
  • Learn what data is synced between Guesty and each booking channel after you establish the connection between Guesty and the channel, and where you should manage each data type, accordingly. 

Also, we recommend you create a backup of your current and future reservations before migrating your listings from the PMS. You can later fill in a CSV file with your reservation information, and we can upload it to Guesty. 

Overview

Read the following outline of the migration process:

1. Connect your OTA account directly to Guesty

Contact the OTA support team to assist you in disconnecting the PMS from the integration with the OTA. Inform them that you want to migrate your listings and reservations to Guesty.

In some channels, you’ll be instructed to disconnect your integration with the OTA via the PMS before moving on with the process. If not instructed, keep the integration active until the migration is done, as a backup.

2. Establish and connect your listings between Guesty and the OTA

If you have an existing integration with Airbnb, first import your listings from Airbnb to Guesty. If you are connecting to channels for the first time, or if your listings are not in Airbnb, start by manually creating the listings in Guesty.

Once the listings are established in Guesty, you can either link (or "map") them to your existing listings in the booking channels or publish (or "push") them directly to the channel. Some channels allow you just one of these options, as described below.

3. Sync your reservations and additional data

When the listings are connected between Guesty and the channel, reservations and additional data will be synced across the platforms. In most cases, reservations with future check-ins will automatically be synced to Guesty upon connecting the listings. If mentioned otherwise, or if you want to import your past reservations to Guesty, send us the CSV file described earlier, or create them manually in Guesty (Pilot users only)

For some OTA's (such as VRBO), the syncing of reservations isn't instant. Therefore, we advise you to pause accepting reservations or switch to "quote and hold" for 24 hours, until syncing is done. This can help you monitor new requests, and avoid double bookings

4. Disconnect the integration between the PMS and the booking channel

Migrating from specific channels

Agoda (Pro users)

Step by step:

  1. Connect your Agoda account to Guesty.
  2. Imported and link listings your listings.

Airbnb

Step by step:

  1. Disconnect your Airbnb account in the PMS platform
  2. Disconnect the PMS from your existing Airbnb account.
  3. Connect your Airbnb account to Guesty.
  4. Import your listings in Airbnb to Guesty. You can also link or publish your Guesty listings to Airbnb.

Booking.com

Step by step:

  1. Connect your Booking.com account directly to Guesty.
  2. Switch your connectivity provider from the PMS to Guesty for each of your listings.
    • You can request the assistance of Booking.com support to make a bulk update for all of your listings
  3. Link your listings in Booking.com to the listings you have in Guesty. Follow the steps in Actions to perform in Booking.com before linking your listings to Guesty. Then, link your listings.
  4. Pro users: you can switch the connection type for your listings between rates & availability only and a full sync. 

Direct integrations

Once you establish your listings in Guesty, you can connect them to Guesty’s direct integrations:

Expedia (Pro users)

Follow the instructions to link your listings between Guesty and Expedia.

Tripadvisor (Pro users)

Step by step:

  1. Connect your Tripadvisor account to Guesty.
  2. Link or publish your Guesty listings to Tripadvisor.

Vrbo

Step by step:

  1. Connect your Vrbo account and listing to Guesty
  2. Update your listings settings (if needed)
  3. You can publish or link additional Guesty listings to Vrbo.

Additional booking channels (Pro users)

Refer to the relevant article.

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