Hostaway Integration

Connect your Touch Stay and Hostaway accounts to import Hostaway property & reservation data into your guides and make it easier to share guides with your guests.

The steps to complete your integration:

• Step 1: Connect your Touch Stay & Hostaway accounts
• Step 2: Match Hostaway properties
• Step 3: Import Hostaway properties
• Step 4: Complete guide creation (new Touch Stay customers only)
• Step 5: Personalisation settings
• Step 6. Sync reservations
• Step 7. Sharing guide links through Hostaway
• 💡Best Practice: Sharing Your Guide
• FAQs

Step 1. Connect your accounts

To get started, you’ll need your Hostaway API key.

1️⃣ Log into your Hostaway account and go to Settings > Hostaway API.

• Click Create.
• Give your API key a name (for example, Touch Stay).
• Click Create again.

• Copy and paste both the Account ID and API Key

  ⚠️ Hostaway will only display the key once, so make sure to save it before closing the window!

👉 You can find more information about Hostaway API keys in this Hostaway article.

2️⃣ Next, log in to your Touch Stay account and go to Integrations.

• Click Connect under the Hostaway logo.
• Paste your Hostaway Account ID and API Key, then click Save.

Step 2. Match Properties

Once authorised, you can match your existing Touch Stay guides to your Hostaway listings.

• Go to the Integrations page and click the Match tab.
• Use the drop-down menus to select the correct Hostaway listing for each Touch Stay guide.
• When you’re done, click Match Selected to confirm.

💡 If you don’t see any guides listed in this step, you can move straight on to Step 3. Import Hostaway properties.

Step 3. Import Properties

If you have any remaining unmatched listings from Hostaway, you can import them directly into Touch Stay.

• Go to the Integrations page and click the Import tab.
• Tick the listings you want to import.
• Click Import Selected to continue.

Touch Stay will import the following details automatically:

• Property name
• Property address
• Cover photo (if the image size meets our requirements)

Each imported listing will create a new Touch Stay guide.

💡 Note about cover photos

Only images that meet our quality requirements can be used as cover photos.

If the imported image is too small, you may need to upload a different one manually.

The minimum width for a cover photo is 1920 px.

How to check or add a cover photo

• Go to the Guides page.
• Click on your guide name.
• Open the Guide Details tab.
• Go to Guide Cover Photos and click Edit Desktop photo
• Click the option Select Photo
• In the Filter photos field, search for the property or guide name and select an image.
• Click Save to confirm your changes.

💡Tip

The cover photo will automatically be resized to fit mobile view. If you prefer, you can also upload a separate portrait-oriented image to improve how the guide looks on mobile devices.

Step 4. Complete guide creation (new Touch Stay customers only)

Matching or importing your listings won’t automatically start syncing reservations from Hostaway.

Before enabling the sync, take a moment to review your guides and make sure all the content is ready to share with guests.

💡 New to Touch Stay?

Visit our Quick Start Video for helpful tips on the quickest way to build your digital welcome book.

Step 5. Personalisation settings

You can map Hostaway property and reservation data fields to your Touch Stay custom fields or topic customisations.

This allows you to automatically personalise your guides and guest messages for each reservation, for example, by showing the guest’s name or stay dates inside your welcome book.

The steps below explain how to map and sync reservation data from Hostaway to your Touch Stay account.

If you’d like to learn how to map property data (for deeper guide-level personalisation), see our related article: Guide level data mapping with Hostaway

Automatically Mapped Fields

The following Hostaway reservation fields are automatically linked to standard field codes in your Touch Stay account:

⚠️ Note: Some OTAs or booking sites don’t always provide the guest’s phone number or email address, so these details may vary depending on where the booking came from.

Optional Fields You Can Manually Map

These additional Hostaway reservation fields are available through the integration and can be manually mapped to your own Touch Stay custom fields:

How to Map Custom Fields

1. Go to the Integrations page.
2. Open the Map Data tab.
3. Click + Add New Mapping.
4. Select the Hostaway field you want to connect.
5. Choose a name for your custom field code and, if needed, add a substitute value.
   • 💡 Tip: Substitute values are used when data from custom fields is missing at the time the field code is used
     • For example, if a custom field, such as Number of adults or Number of children, isn’t provided, you could display a message like “Contact us if this information is missing.”
     • 👉 Learn more in our article: Field Codes Explained
6. Once your custom fields are mapped, any future reservations synced from Hostaway will automatically populate those fields on the Touch Stay Invitation record.

💡 Tip: You can then use this data in your Message Hub templates and guide content to personalise the guest experience.

Step 6. Sync reservations

Sync Hostaway reservations with your Touch Stay account and complete the integration.

1. Go to Integrations → Sync tab
2. Under Sync Options, choose how to import your reservations:

   • All reservations – recommended if you’re new to Touch Stay.

     This will sync all your future-dated reservations and generate invitations for each one.

   • New reservations only – choose this if you already use Message Hub to send invitations.

     It will only create invitations for bookings made after the sync activation date, preventing duplicates.

3. Tick the checkboxes for the guides you want to sync. Use Select All (top-right) to choose all guides at once.
4. Click Sync Selected.
   • The process may take a few minutes, depending on the number of reservations and properties.
   • You can stay on the page or continue working; the sync runs in the background.
5. Once active, any new Hostaway reservations will automatically import into Touch Stay for those guides.

💡 Tip:

You can check your sync status or view imported reservations anytime from the Message Hub →  Invitations page.

Step 7. Sharing guide links through Hostaway

Touch Stay automatically sends a unique guide link for each reservation back to Hostaway.

You can include this link in your Hostaway message templates to share guides automatically through their unified inbox.

Your Hostaway account will now have a new custom reservation field:

{{reservation_touch_stay_guide_link}}    

💡 How to add this custom reservation field to your Hostaway message template

1. Open the Hostaway message template you’d like to edit or create a new one.
2. Place your cursor where you want the guide link to appear.
3. Click the { } icon at the top-right corner of the message editor to open the field list.
4. In the Reservation custom fields column, find and select

{{reservation_touch_stay_guide_link}}    — this will drop the field directly into your message.

The unique Touch Stay guide link will now be automatically included in your Hostaway message templates and sent to guests as part of your communication flow.

⚠️ Important:

Do not delete the {{reservation_touch_stay_guide_link}}    field from the Hostaway Custom Fields page.

If it’s removed, you’ll need to contact Touch Stay Support to have it reinstated.

Best Practice: Sharing Your Guide

A note about Hostaway message timing

There may be a short delay between a booking arriving in Hostaway and the guide link being returned from Touch Stay while both systems process the data.

💡 Recommendation:

Avoid adding the {{reservation_touch_stay_guide_link}}     field to messages that send immediately after a booking is received.

Instead, schedule a message about 1 hour later (or even the next day) to introduce your guests to everything they’ll find in your guidebook.

When and how to share the Touch Stay guide link (via Hostaway)

We usually recommend this setup for the best guest experience:

1. First message – after booking confirmation

   When: Around 1 hour after the booking

   Why: Avoids sending the guide too early and ensures everything is ready

2. Reminder message – before arrival

   When: A few days or weeks before arrival

   Why: Encourages guests to review house info and plan ahead

3. Final reminder – close to arrival

   When: 1 day before arrival

   Why: Ideal for check-in instructions and arrival details

What happens if I’m already using Memo?

If you want to switch from Message Hub to Hostaway for sending guide links:

1. Archive your existing Message Hub message templates; this stops them from being added to new reservations.
2. Set up your new Hostaway message flow.

3. Archiving won’t affect any existing invitations.

   To cancel messages already scheduled, delete the Message Hub template instead.

FAQs

Why isn’t my new property sharing the guide link with bookings?

There are a couple of common reasons for this:

1️⃣ Matching not completed

Each time you add a new listing to your Hostaway account, you’ll need to complete the matching and sync steps in Touch Stay for it to share guide links automatically.

👉 Step 2. Match Properties

2️⃣ Sync not activated

Check that syncing is enabled for the property in the Integrations → Sync Reservations tab.

If the property isn’t selected for syncing, no guide links will be sent back to Hostaway.

👉 Step 6. Sync reservations

💬 Still not seeing the link?

If you’ve completed the steps above and the link is still missing, please email support@touchstay.com with:

• Your login email address
• Guide name
• Guest arrival date
• Hostaway booking ID

This information helps our team investigate the issue quickly.

🤝 Need Help?

If you get stuck, please reach out. We’ll be happy to help!

📧 support@touchstay.com

Or send us a ticket directly from your Touch Stay account.