How do you connect with Google Vacation Rentals?
The first step to ensuring that the Google Vacation Rental channel is operational is to have your Hostaway Booking Engine published and live.
It is important to understand that for reservations made through the Google Vacation Rental channel, guests initially find the property via Google VR and are then redirected to the Booking Engine, where the reservation is finalized. Hostaway still tracks these reservations as Google VR reservations, as we can verify whether the customer accessed the booking engine directly or was redirected from Google VR.
You have two options:
- You have the Booking Engine set for the main domain (and in that case, DNS settings need to reflect that and not point to a different website)
- You have the Booking Engine set for a subdomain (and in that case, DNS settings need to reflect that and not point to a different website)
If the URL that is exported by the Booking Engine to Google is not set in the DNS for the Hostaway Booking Engine, then the Google Vacation Rental channel will not work.
In other words, Google Vacation Rental will only work if connected to a Booking Engine website.
To publish your listings on Google Vacation Rental please follow the next steps:
- Go to your Hostaway Dashboard > Channel Manager
- In the top bar select "Channels" > Google "G" Logo > Configure
- Select the listing you would like to publish > Click on "Publish"
To be published on Google Vacation Rentals:
- The listing must be on a published Booking Engine
- Have at least 8 images. With a minimum resolution of 1024 x 683 pixels
Google's requirements for Company name & Logo
- The logo should be square and the file format PNG
- The logo should not have more than three letters
- Logo Minimum size 72 x 72 pixels
- The Logo should be transparent or non-white background
- The company name should be user-friendly (no: shortTermRentalzHouston or forestcottage; yes: Blue Lake Cabins, Miami Beach Rentals)
- The company name should be mostly text and not numbers
- The company name should be capitalized when a suitable addition, if you want to display the listings on Google under your company name, enter the name and logo under settings, making sure to follow the guidelines. Your brand name and logo would need to be approved by Google, which may take up to 2 weeks
- Once the steps mentioned above are completed you can now publish the listing
- You can publish all listings by pressing "publish all"
- Listings may take a few days to be displayed on Google. You can search for your listings here
- Make sure you add Google to your auto-payments, messaging, and tasks.
Notes
- Listing content such as photos can take up to 2 weeks to update on Google
- Pricing and availability are synced with Google immediately
- Google needs to approve your brand name and logo
- Google does not respect the order of the photos set in Hostaway
- To be published on Google Vacation Rentals, a listing must be on a published Booking Engine, and have at least 8 images. The images need to have a minimum resolution of at least 1024 x 683 pixels
- Google does not accept the following property types: Guesthouse, Boutique hotel, Hostel, Heritage hotel (India), Hotel. If you require the property to be Condominium you'll need to reach the Hostaway Support team and Hostaway will need to reach out to Google to see if it can be approved (for a faster process, it is also best not to use Condominium)