HomeAway now supports 2-way calendar synchronization via iCalendar

HomeAway now links with and supports 2-way calendar synchronization via iCalendar. Our subscribers can now look forward to live updates via their Homes and Rooms reservations calendar.

It’s great news for independent vacation rental owners and managers, especially those with 4 or less properties. All of the HomeAway family of listing sites, which includes VBRO, Owners Direct and others, now support the 2-way iCalendar synchronization. This means Homes and Rooms subscribers can automatically update their reservation calendars on each listing site via their Homes and Rooms dashboard. iCalendar is a file format that allows users to create, share and synchronize electronic calendars. The format is supported by many companies (including Apple, Microsoft and Google), applications and services, including those offered by the major listings sites.

One calendar for all reservations

Homes and Rooms gives subscribers a single-calendar view for all their reservations, seasonal events, holidays and more. If you are registered with more than one listings site, our system will communicate with and update all your linked sites automatically every time your calendar changes. When potential guests view any one of your calendars they can see your current availability. This helps prevent double bookings and enables subscribers to see opportunities to manage rates more effectively making reservations more profitable. Take a look at our Marketing Manager feature. Using this, when a guest reservation is confirmed, you don’t need to manually update the availability calendars on all listings sites you advertise with. If they support iCalendar integration it will be synchronized automatically for you.

For owners with 4 or less properties

The new HomeAway 2-way iCalendar synchronization support applies to owners/managers with 4 or less properties (it was always available to those with 5 or more properties). If you are registered with HomeAway, VRBO, Owners Direct or any other site in that family, you will just need to make the initial link to your property in Homes and Rooms. Find out how to do this this via this link on HomeAway.