Connect your Airbnb and Booking.com calendars

Show live availability on your website and take direct requests. Copy the calendar link from Airbnb and Booking.com, paste it in Looops, and the site does the rest.

If you already take bookings through Airbnb, Booking.com or any platform that shares a calendar link, your website's bookings can read that calendar so those dates show as taken on your site too. This guide walks you through copying the links, one property at a time. It is optional: bookings on your site work without any platform.

What you get

  • Nights already booked on the platform appear as taken on your site, so nobody asks for them.
  • Everything else stays as described in Take bookings on your website: requests, your emails, your admin page.

Before you start

This applies when you chose to let the site keep count of what is booked. When the assistant asks "where do your bookings live today?", name the platform. It then shows a card asking for your calendar links. Keep this guide open while you collect them.

The links are private: anyone who has one can see when your property is booked. Only ever paste them into the card in Looops, never into the chat or an email. How connections work explains the card and where the links are kept.

Airbnb: copy the calendar link

Do this once per listing.

  1. On airbnb.com (or airbnb.fr), open Hosting at the top, then Calendar.
  2. If you have several listings, pick the one you want in the list on the left.
  3. Open Availability settings, the sliders icon on the right side of the calendar.
  4. Scroll down to Connect calendars and choose Connect to another website.
  5. Copy the export link shown. It ends in .ics and contains a long code after s=.
  6. Paste it into the Airbnb calendar link field for that property in Looops.

If you do not see "Connect to another website", make sure you are on the calendar of a single listing, not the multi-calendar view.

Booking.com: copy the calendar link

Do this once per property in the extranet.

  1. Log in at admin.booking.com.
  2. Open Rates & Availability, then Sync calendars.
  3. Under Export calendar, copy the link.
  4. Paste it into the Booking.com calendar link field for that property in Looops.

If Sync calendars is missing from the menu: Booking.com only offers it for properties with 20 room types or fewer and one unit per room type, and it hides it when a channel manager is connected. Ask Booking.com partner support to enable it; that can take a few days. Your site works with the Airbnb link alone in the meantime.

Any other calendar

Google Calendar: in Settings, click your calendar, then Integrate calendar, and copy the Secret address in iCal format. Vrbo, Gîtes de France and most platforms have a similar "export calendar" link. Paste it in the Another calendar link field.

Paste and check

Paste each link into its field in the card and click Save. The assistant then checks every link and tells you what it found, for example "Balazuc Airbnb: link valid, 14 booked periods, next check-out 12 September". That is your proof it works.

If a link is refused (403) or expired: copy a fresh export link from the platform, the old one was reset. If it says not a calendar: you copied a page address instead of the export link. Go back to step 5 and copy the link that ends in .ics. If it says not set: the field was left empty. Optional fields can stay empty.

Put the calendar on your pages

Tell the assistant where you want it: "add the availability calendar to each gîte's page" or "one calendar per property on the home page". It places it and matches your site's colours.

What happens when a guest requests dates

  1. The guest picks free nights and sends their name, email and message.
  2. You receive an email with the details and two buttons, Accept and Decline. The guest receives a short acknowledgement saying nothing is booked yet.
  3. You click one button, or answer from your admin page. The guest receives your answer by email. If you accepted, the nights turn grey on your calendar.

Good to know: the delay

Airbnb and Booking.com refresh their calendar links on their own schedule, from every 15 minutes up to about 3 hours. Your site re-reads them every 10 minutes. So a booking made on Airbnb can take a few hours to appear as booked on your site. Every tool that uses these links has the same delay, which is why you confirm each request yourself. Before accepting, a quick look at the platform calendar is a good habit.

Optional: block the platforms from your site too

Once the calendar is live, your site can give each property its own calendar link with the stays you accepted. Import it into Airbnb ("Import calendar") and Booking.com so that a direct booking blocks those dates there too. Ask the assistant for "the outgoing calendar link for each property" when you are ready.

Common questions

Can I take payments or deposits? Not yet. Requests are confirmed by you, and you agree on payment with the guest as you do today.

Does a request block the dates? No. Only your acceptance blocks them. Two guests can request the same dates; you choose.

What if a platform is down? The calendar keeps showing the last copy it read and the assistant can tell you which platform did not answer.

I moved my site off Looops. Does it still work? Yes. Set the same environment variables (the calendar links and the two tokens) on your new host.