Integration overview

Introduction

Hostelworld is a leading Online Travel Agency present in more than 18- countries with the primarily focus put on the hostelling branch of the travelling market. It has an extensive affiliate network of 3,500 global partners, including Lonely Planet and Travellerspoint. Hostelworld is recognized with a trusted-brand status and a loyal customer base built up over 22 years.

Integration model

Hostelworld is another Sales Channel (SC) that has been successfully integrated with Rentals United. Property Managers (PMs) can connect to Hostelworld and start advertising their properties through this channel. This document outlines the connection overview and synchronization scope.

  • ARI data is sent to Hostelworld automatically upon change registered in the Rentals United system

  • property descriptive content is not sent to Hostelworld at all and, hence, should be managed in the Hostelworld dashboard

  • reservations created in Hostelworld are retrieved by Rentals United every 5 minutes

  • reservations created in Rentals United block availability in Hostelworld

  • cancellations made in Hostelworld are retrieved by Rentals United

Note: In this integration, you can only offer full rooms on Hostelworld. We do not support offering individual beds at the moment.

Categorization

Hostelworld specialises in selling inventory en masse. In this system, guests can choose a specific room type from the available inventory , for example a double room in a hotel.

  • Rentals United hotel or group refers to the room type, e.g. Queen Apartment or Two-Bedroom Apartment and is synchronized as multi-unit. A multi-unit refers to a set of indistinguishable properties. These properties work the same way the regular properties do; however, they represent a number of properties with the same specification at the same address. An example of a multi-unit property is a set of identical hotel rooms.

  • Rentals United property refers to a physical room of a certain type, e.g. Property 1 and Property 3 are categorized as Two-Bedroom Apartment.

  • Rentals United rate refers to a particular pricing plan, which is created based on particular settings in your property in the channel. You can see your rates after selecting the Property Settings page of the Hostelworld channel in the Services tab. Rentals United automatically maps different rate plans if only they are available in the channel. It is not possible to create rate plans in Rentals United.

Contract details

New clients: New clients need to create an account at Hostelworld Sign-up and create properties. Then, please send an email to connectionrequest@hostelworld.com and request to connect your newly created account with your Rentals United account.

Existing clients: If you are an existing client who already has an account in the Hostelworld system, you need to contact connectionrequest@hostelworld.com with the details of your account and request them to merge your Hostelworld account with the Rentals United.

Commission: Hostelworld requires a 15% commission on the rates, which is charged from the guest at the moment of booking. Note, however, that the commission value may differ depending on your agreement with Hostelworld.

Payment process: Hostelworld does not handle payments for you except the commission amount. You are free to choose how you charge the guest.