Connecting to Google Travel in new design

Minimum requirements to connect

In order to connect the Property Manager’s (PM’s) property to Google Travel, the following requirements must be met:

  • Property name: It must contain at least one character;

  • Property type: It must be set to one of the following: Apartment, Bed and Breakfast, Chalet, Guest House, Lodge, Resort, Villa, Castle, Aparthotel, Boat, Cottage, Camping, House.

    Note: This means that property of the hotel type cannot be connected to Google Travel.

  • Country: It needs to be provided;

  • Geo-coordinates: It must be provided;

  • Licence number: It needs to be provided.

  • Number of bathrooms: At least 1 bathroom must be selected.

  • Description: It needs to be provided;

  • Photos: 

    • Photo size (both width and height) cannot be greater than 4096 px.

    • Number of photos: minimum 5;

  • Availability: The property has some available periods specified

  • Redirecting traffic: Rentals United verifies if the property has the URL to their custom website provided. This is applicable only to clients who have their property configured to redirect traffic.

Establishing connection

In order to start advertising on Google Travel, you need to establish the connection with this sales channel. You can do this by adding it to the list of services in your account. Follow the below steps in order to get connected.

  1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.

  2. Click the Find Services tab.

  3. Type the Google name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

  4. Unfold the Google section by clicking the Down arrow button.

  5. Click the Get connected button.

  1. Your connection is now being validated in the background. If the validation is passed successfully, the Connection Wizard is launched and you can go to the next step. If you are not eligible to connect to Google, an error is displayed.

    Eligibility errors indicate violating initial channel requirements that need to be met before you establish the connection. You will not be able to go to the next step and finish the connection process unless the eligibility error is cleared away. In order to resolve it, follow the instructions displayed on the screen. Please, see an exemplary eligibility error below.

  2. You are presented with a brief description on how the Google works. Read it carefully and confirm that you agree with it by ticking the checkbox below. Do not worry, once all the steps of the Connection Wizard are completed, you will still be able to view the How it works content again. Click the Save & Next button on the bottom of the page to move to the next step.

    Tip: On the top of the page, you can view the progress of the Connection Wizard. Depending on the channel, the number of steps may differ. You can stop anywhere along the process. Upon next time you open the Connection Wizard, you will continue at the last completed step.

  3. Follow the next steps displayed in Rentals United.

Add new properties

If you already have some properties created in Rentals United and you want to start advertising them on Google Travel.

  1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.

  2. Select the proper list to search for Google.

    • Find Services lists the channels you are not yet connected to,

    • My Services lists the channels which you have already established connection with and channels that are in the process of being connected.

  3. Type the Google name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

  4. Unfold the Google section by clicking the Down arrow button.

  5. Click the Property Settings button.

  1. Connect the property.

    Depending on whether you already have some properties connected to the Google or not, you are presented with two different options.

    • If it is the first property to be connected, click the Connect your first property button.

    • If it is the next property to be connected, click the Add property button.

  2. Choose the properties to connect to the channel. You can read about the different ways of filtering and selecting properties here..

  3. Click Next. You will see here the summary of all selected properties. Review the list and check if all properties that you wish to connect are included.

    4. Click Next to proceed.

  4. The content quality is analysed. The process should take up to a few minutes.

  5. The summary of properties’ content is displayed.

    1. Check the content quality by unfolding the section with warning.

      Verify if any data is missing or incorrect. It is possible to display the errors by unfolding the section. For more detailed summary of errors, download the XLSX report by clicking the Download Quality Check button.

    2. Click the Improve button. The Edit property page is opened in a new tab.

    3. Correct the content indicated in the report in the Edit property page.

    4. Go back to the Property List and click the Re-check button. If no further errors are displayed, the property is ready to publish.

  6. If the properties are ready to publish, adjust the markup for each of them. You can adjust the mark-up for each property one by one or apply the same mark-up value for all at once.

  7. Click the Publish properties button.

  8. The published properties enter the Pending status.

    At this point, you need to wait until Google completes all the necessary steps on their side in order to successfully connect your property. Usually, it may be signing a contract, completing the account set-up and so on. For some channels, for example Google Travel it happens almost automatically. For others, you may wait up to few days. If you do not hear from the channel, you should contact them.

Mapping properties to existing listings (N/A)

Mapping Google Travel listings to properties in Rentals United is not supported.

Editing rates

The information in this chapter is useful when you already have properties connected, but you want to introduce changes to rates that will affect only Google Travel.

Setting the mark-up level

  1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.

  2. Select the proper list to search for Google.

    • Find Services lists the channels you are not yet connected to,

    • My Services lists the channels which you have already established connection with and channels that are in the process of being connected.

  3. Type the Google name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

  4. Unfold the Google section by clicking the Down arrow button.

  5. Click the Property Settings button.

  1. The Property page is opened.

  2. Click the Manage button.

  3. Set the mark-up level the property price should be adjusted to for Google.

    Note: Additionally for Vrbo, it is possible to set here the Down payment value.

Updating listings

After the property content is changed in the Edit property page in Rentals United, your listing will be automatically updated on the Google Travel website through the Live Notification Mechanism.

Deactivating properties

In this section, you can find more information on how to stop renting your properties on the Google Travel channel.

  1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.

  2. Select the proper list to search for Google.

    • Find Services lists the channels you are not yet connected to,

    • My Services lists the channels which you have already established connection with and channels that are in the process of being connected.

  3. Type the Google name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

  4. Unfold the Google section by clicking the Down arrow button.

  5. Click the Property Settings button.

  1. Search for the property you want to deactivate by scrolling down or filtering the property out.

  2. Click the Manage button.

  3. A property management page is opened.

  4. Click the Disconnect button.

  5. A pop-up window is displayed. Confirm the action by clicking the Yes, disconnect button.

Note: After deactivation, the property will be removed from the Google Travel website. Availability can be always re-opened by clicking the Activate button next to the rate.

Bulk actions

  1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.

  2. Select the proper list to search for Google.

    • Find Services lists the channels you are not yet connected to,

    • My Services lists the channels which you have already established connection with and channels that are in the process of being connected.

  3. Type the Google name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

  4. Unfold the Google section by clicking the Down arrow button.

  5. Click the Property Settings button.

  1. Click the Bulk actions button on top of the page.

  2. You entered the bulk flow and you can update all your listings at once. Bulk actions may vary across the channels. Bear in mind that some options that are available for Google may not be available for other channels.

    You can read more about bulk actions:

  3. Select the option and follow the steps displayed on the screen.

  4. After the operation is finished, you will be prompted that it was successful. Click the OK button and you will be moved to the Property Settings.

    Note: If any process fails for some properties, you will be presented information which properties were not updated and you can try again.