Experience the difference of "Elite".

Airbnb ical change

MB
Sep 8, 2019 11:08 AM
Joined Dec, 2018 23 posts

How will Airbnb's new policy of masking guest details effect our collection of guest data through OR? Will data through Channel Bridge be impacted?

BlueMtnCabins
Sep 8, 2019 5:22 PM
Joined Jun, 2016 1115 posts

As part of Airbnb’s ongoing efforts to minimize exposure of guest information, exported iCal events will no longer display reservation details. These changes will take effect on December 1, 2019.

What’s changing?

The iCal calendar sync description for reservations will display only the last 4 digits of the guest phone number, along with a link to the reservation details page. The guest name and reservation code will be removed from the event titles, and the calendar sync will export listing calendar information for future dates only.

The following information will be provided for each reservation exported via iCal moving forward:

Summary: Will appear as “Reserved”

Description: Will include a “Reservation URL” section with the link to the reservation details page and a “Phone Number (Last 4 Digits)” section with the last 4 digits of the guest’s phone number

What does this mean for hosts?

If you rely on detailed information from the iCal calendar sync descriptions, you may need to make updates or alert your software partners to the changes above so they’re ready when they take effect on December 1, 2019.

These changes won’t impact iCal’s syncing functionality—your calendar will continue to prevent multiple guests from booking the same dates.

Katie K
Sep 9, 2019 11:41 AM
Joined Jul, 2019 19 posts

Will this affect auto messages at all? Or will the scrambled Airbnb email still be available?

Thanks!

Chris Hynes
Sep 10, 2019 11:20 AM
OR Team Member Joined Oct, 2012 1400 posts

After the change in December, the Airbnb email address will no longer come in through iCal import, but will be available through channel bridge -- just like how VRBO works now.

We're also hard at work on the official API channel integration with Airbnb and will have that fully available long before December -- we currently plan to release that widely in October.

With the Airbnb channel integration, guest info and charges will come over automatically on reservations and we'll push full listing content to Airbnb (photos, descriptions, rates, amenities, etc). This will also includes messaging and reviews as well!

We'll post more details and dates in a few weeks as we get closer to the release.