Keeping Airbnb, Booking.com and your own website in step is the difference between smooth bookings and awkward “sorry, we’ve double-booked that date” emails. The good news: you don’t need a heavy channel manager to get the basics right. A tidy iCal setup will keep your calendars aligned and your guests happy.

Quick refresher: what iCal actually does

iCalendar (usually shortened to iCal) is a standard format that platforms use to share events. In our world, those events are bookings and blocks. Airbnb and Booking.com each provide an export URL (so others can read their bookings) and an import feature (so they can read everyone else’s). Your website can do the same.

iCal sync moves availability, not your rates, photos, or policies. If you want those in lockstep everywhere, that’s an API/channel-manager job. For availability alone, iCal is perfect.

Two strategies that work in the real world

Implement one of these patterns. Pick the one that matches how you work.

Strategy 1 — Full two-way sync (mesh)

What it is: Every calendar connects to every other calendar both ways.
When to use: Small portfolios where you want belt-and-braces coverage and don’t mind a few extra connections.

How it looks:

• Airbnb ↔ Booking.com
• Airbnb ↔ Your website
• Booking.com ↔ Your website
• (Optional) PMS (SuperControl/Bookalet) ↔ all of the above

Pros

• Maximum redundancy: a booking added anywhere ripples everywhere else.
• Easy to understand at a glance: “everything talks to everything.”

Cons

• More admin: adding a new channel means wiring it to every existing calendar.
• Easier to miss a connection later if you expand.

Strategy 2 — Primary calendar (hub-and-spoke)

What it is: Choose one “source of truth” and connect everything else to it in both directions. For most owners, your website is best as the primary. If you run a PMS, you might choose SuperControl or Bookalet as your primary instead.

How it looks (website as primary):

• Website ↔ Airbnb
• Website ↔ Booking.com
• (Optional) Website ↔ PMS (SuperControl/Bookalet)

Pros

• Fewer moving parts; simpler to maintain.
• New channels are easy: connect them to the hub and you’re done.
• Keeps your brand site as the most accurate place for guests to check availability.

Cons

• If the hub goes offline, everything waits until it’s back (rare, but worth noting).

Our recommended setup (most owners)

We usually make your website the primary calendar. Why? It’s the one place you fully control, it’s where direct bookings happen, and it’s the calendar your guests actually see. We connect Airbnb and Booking.com directly to your site so all three stay aligned.

If you already run SuperControl or Bookalet, we can flip the model and make your PMS the primary. Your website, Airbnb and Booking.com will then take their cues from the PMS.