VulCode

Channel manager and Booking.com for hotels and guesthouses

A room sold on Booking.com disappears from your site and other portals, and a booking from your site lowers availability everywhere. We connect your booking system to a channel manager so one calendar is the source of truth and double bookings stop happening.

Integrations
A guesthouse reception panel: free rooms and rates for every night in the sales channels, a warning about a Booking.com booking only in the fallback email and today's updates to the channels

Why it usually goes through a channel manager

The Booking.com API is for Connectivity Partners, who go through onboarding on Booking.com's side. A hotel with its own system usually connects through a channel manager that already is one.

  1. Do you run bookings in a system of your own?

    A site with bookings, a PMS or a custom panel.

  2. Are you a hotel chain or a software vendor?

    Connectivity Partners connect to Booking.com directly after onboarding with Booking.com.

  3. Do you already have a channel manager?

    Channel manager APIs differ from one another.

Do you run bookings in a system of your own?
  • Yes
    Are you a hotel chain or a software vendor?
    • Yes
      Your system as a Booking.com partner
    • No
      Do you already have a channel manager?
      • Yes
        Your channel manager and your system
      • No
        A new channel manager and your system
  • No
    A channel manager with a built-in PMS
  • Yes
    • Yes
      Your system as a Booking.com partner
    • No
      • Yes
        Your channel manager and your system
      • No
        A new channel manager and your system
  • No
    A channel manager with a built-in PMS

A Booking.com reservation in your calendar

The channel hands the booking to the channel manager, which passes it on to your calendar. The sync log shows both runs: the one that worked and the one that ended in email.

The channel manager sync log in a reception panel: availability sent, bookings received and acknowledged, and a booking rejected over a rate with no match, with the fallback email from Booking.com

  1. Acknowledged after the save

    A reservation retrieved but not acknowledged still ends up in the fallback email. So acknowledgement comes only after it is saved in the calendar.

  2. A reported error

    The partner reported a processing error. The booking is not cancelled, and the email to the property goes at once.

  3. Daily reconciliation

    We compare the calendar with the channel manager to catch drifts before they turn into a double booking.

When everything works: The room is taken in the calendar, and availability drops on your site and the other portals.

Without acknowledgement: Without acknowledgement within 30 minutes, Booking.com emails the reservation to the property and reception enters it by hand.

How room sales are layered

From portals down to your calendar. Each layer has its own job.

  1. Sales channels

    • Booking.com
    • Other portals
    • Your site

  2. Channel manager

    • Room and rate mapping
    • Distributing rates and availability
    • Collecting reservations

  3. Integration

    This is where it is decided which system wins when two disagree.

    • Event queue
    • One calendar
    • Change log

  4. Your system

    • PMS or panel
    • Reception and housekeeping
    • Billing

One source of truth

Bookings

A reservation from any channel first enters the calendar, and only then changes availability in the others.

Availability and rates

Room availability is counted by one system, usually your PMS. The others only receive it.

Booking.com rules that shape the integration

From the Connectivity docs. They bind the partner, and so the channel manager you connect through.

Room and rate mapping in a reception panel: rates mapped in the channels, rates and availability a year ahead, the channel manager's rate codes and pricing types, with one rate that has no match
  • a rate with a matchthe calendar
    a rate with no matchemail to the property

    A rate with no match

    A booking on an unmapped rate bypasses the system and lands in email. We check the map before launch and after every offer change.

  • at least a full year
    todayin 12 months

    A year of rates and availability

    Booking.com expects partners to load at least a full year of rates and availability per property. Without rates and availability for the coming months, the room simply cannot be booked for those dates.

    • Standardthe base rate
    • RLOa derived rate
    • OBPper-guest pricing
    • LOSlength-of-stay pricing

    Pricing types

    Standard, RLO, OBP and LOS, each after certification. Per-guest or length-of-stay rates depend on what your channel manager supports.

Atrium, our hotel panel

Real screenshots of the Atrium panel.

Atrium: a two-week booking gantt with rooms by floor

The booking calendar

A booking calendar with collision control, which in a channel manager integration is the one source of truth.

Atrium: a floor map with room statuses

The floor map

A floor map with live room statuses: free, arrival, occupied, departure and needs cleaning.

Atrium in short

In beta
Atrium is our own panel for hotels, guesthouses and apartments.
A 14-day gantt
Bookings with collision control, room by room and floor by floor.
Housekeeping and maintenance
In one flow with the bookings: reception clicks a room and knows everything.
Atrium in our portfolio
Online platforms

Common questions about channel managers

Answers about the Booking.com connection, an existing channel manager, site bookings and the quote.

Tired of double bookings?

Tell us where you sell rooms today and which system you run them in. We will reply within an hour with questions and a quote.