Airbnb Integration
Touch Stay integrates with Airbnb via Hospitable Connect so you can import your listings and automatically send your guide link to guests when a booking is confirmed.
Steps to complete your integration:
- Step 1: Connect your Touch Stay & Airbnb accounts
- Step 2: Match Airbnb listings
- Step 3: Import Airbnb listings
- Step 4: Complete guide creation (new Touch Stay customers only)
- Step 5: Personalisation settings
- Step 6: Guide sharing settings
- Step 7: Sync bookings
Demo video
Watch this demo to show you how to connect your Touch Stay and Airbnb accounts in less than 10 minutes.
Step 1. Connect your Touch Stay & Airbnb accounts
Go to Integrations and click 'Connect' under the Airbnb logo.
Follow the prompt to take you to the Airbnb connection flow where you confirm giving access to Touch Stay. You will need your Airbnb login to complete this step.
When you have completed the connection flow you will be given the choice to go back to Touch Stay to finish set-up OR connect another Airbnb account to Touch Stay. If you have multiple Airbnb accounts you will need to complete this step to ensure all of your listings are connected to Touch Stay.
Step 2. Match Airbnb listings
Once connected, match any existing guides to your Airbnb listings. Go to Integrations > Match and use the drop downs to select the correct Airbnb listing for each guide. When complete, click 'Match selected'. If you don’t have any to match click 'Skip'. If you don’t see any guides on this step then they are already matched and you can move on to Step 3.
Step 3. Import Airbnb listings
If you have unmatched listings from Airbnb, go to Import to connect them. Select the ones you want to import then click 'Import selected;'. If you don’t want to import them click 'Skip' and leaving the selections blank. Each new listing you import with have a guide automatically created for it with the correct guide name and address.
Touch Stay will import the following:
- Listing name
- Listing address
Step 4. Complete guide creation (new Touch Stay customers only)
Check your guide content (especially for the new guides which were just created) and make sure they’re complete and ready to share with your guests. You need to do this before you sync Airbnb bookings. If you’re new to Touch Stay then check out the Getting Started page for hints and tips on the quickest way to build out your guide content.
Step 5. Personalisation settings
You can connect custom field codes created in Touch Stay to fields provided through the Airbnb integration. This will then mean any values set for these fields in Airbnb will pass into Touch Stay and can be added to your Memo message templates or guide content. The available fields are as follows:
- Guest first name
- Guest last name
- Arrival date
- Departure date
- Guest contact phone number*
*Airbnb does not provide the guest email address so only the guest phone number is available through this integration.
To connect any of these fields to Touch Stay head to 'Custom data mapping' click the '+Add new mapping' button.
Select the Airbnb fields to connect, give your custom field code a name and a substitute value. Substitute values are used when no data is available to pull in from Airbnb e.g. 'Hello visitor!' is substituted when the guest name field is blank. See this article for more detail about field codes.
Once the custom fields have been created future bookings from Airbnb will have the relevant data automatically populated for each guest (the invitation record).
Step 6. Guide sharing settings
With this integration you can send messages from Touch Stay to guests through the Airbnb message inbox. There are 5 fixed templates available that include the guest name, host name and the relevant guide name and access link.
Go to the Memo and click 'Add Airbnb Template'.
You can schedule these messages to be sent to guests based on their booking date or to be sent immediately after booking. We recommend the below schedule:
- Post booking message: set schedule to immediate
- Pre-arrival message: set schedule to 3 days before arrival date
- Post-departure message: set schedule to 2 days after departure date
- Guidebook link: set schedule to immediate
- Guidebook link reminder: set schedule to 2 days before arrival date
The guidebook link and guidebook link reminder templates only contain information about your guidebook are are designed to fit into your existing Airbnb message schedule if you already have one set up. You can mix and match the 5 available messages based on how you would like to share your guide with guests and how you like to communicate.
Your messages will now be sent to guests via the Airbnb inbox based on the schedule you have set. You can adjust these schedules any time and still continue to send manual, ad hoc messages to guests through the Airbnb message inbox.
This booking information that is automatically populated in your Airbnb message templates is shown as a field code. There are 4 field codes you will see in your Airbnb message templates:
These two field codes come from Airbnb:
- %guest_name% (this wil be replaced by the name of the guest staying with you)
- %host_first_name% (this will be replaced by your first name set in your Airbnb profile)
These two field codes come from Touch Stay:
- {{guide_name}} (this will be replaced by the name of the guide)
- {{invitation_link}} (this wil be replaced by the unique link for this guest)
Text messages and Airbnb:
Airbnb doesn't provide guest email addresses to hosts but they do share guest phone numbers. You can use Touch Stay's SMS text messaging feature to automate sending text messages to guests.
Go to Memo > Add SMS Template. You can configure the messages the same way you configure the Airbnb message templates but now you can edit existing template content or create your own templates so there is more flexibility.
Using the SMS text message option is a great way to build a more comprehensive guest communication flow and gives you the option to add links to specific sections of your guide, so you can direct guests to discover more of your guidebook.
An important note on text messages and Airbnb
If you are already using Memo to send SMS text messages to guests before you connect your Airbnb acocunt to Touch Stay, these messages will automatically be sent to your Airbnb guests if the Send criteria for your SMS text message templates is set to Always Send.
You can adjust the send criteria or create new SMS text message templates specifically for your Airbnb guests.
Step 7. Sync bookings
Once your guides are ready then you can start syncing with Airbnb
Go to the Sync reservations tab on the Integration page. Select the guides you want to sync using the checkboxes.
Use the “Select All” option at the top right of the page to select all in one go. Click Sync selected to submit.
Here you can choose whether to import all your future reservations or have Touch Stay only import new reservations.
- If you are new to Touch Stay then choose “All reservations”
- If you are already a user of Touch Stay and using Memo to send messages to guests choose 'New reservations only', to prevent duplicate bookings being imported
Now your Airbnb account is connected to Touch Stay and your guide links will automatically be sent to guests through the Airbnb inbox.
If you have any issues completing your Airbnb integration, please send an email to: support@touchstay.com