Connecting to Google Travel

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 Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab on the main menu.
Click the Find Services tab.
Type the Google name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.
Unfold the Google section by clicking the Down arrow button.
Click the button.
Follow the steps displayed in the Rentals United platform.

At this point, your account is connected to Google Travel.

If you already have some properties created in Rentals United platform, you can start advertising them in the channel as described in Add new properties.

Add new properties

If you already have some properties connected or mapped to Google Travel, but you want to connect additional ones.

In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.
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.
Type the Google name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.
Unfold the Google section by clicking the Down arrow button.
Click the Property Settings button.

The Property List opens.
Click the Activate button.

The property list includes all the properties from your account. In case the activate button is grayed out it means that some content needs to be improved. Hover over the property's status and click Go. You will be redirected to the Edit property page, where you can do the necessary updates.
Optionally, go to the Google Travel website and find your listing. Copy the URL and paste it into the URL field to set the connection live. Click the Update status button.
The status changes from Not connected to Active within the next 24 hours. Now, the connection is up and running and you start receiving reservations for the activated properties.

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 or mapped, but you want to introduce changes to rates that will affect only Google Travel.

Setting the mark-up level

In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.
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.
Type the Google name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.
Unfold the Google section by clicking the Down arrow button.
Click the Property Settings button.

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

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 or why your connection stopped syncing.

In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.
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.
Type the Google name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.
Unfold the Google section by clicking the Down arrow button.
Click the Property Settings button.

The Property List opens.
Click the Deactivate button.
The status changes from Active to Not connected.

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.

Reasons for connection deactivation

There are two reasons the connection with Google gets deactivated.

The connection was deactivated purposefully

In case you would like to stop offering your listing on Google, you can do it at your convenience. In order to do so, follow the steps in Deactivating properties. Once completed, Google will no longer have access to your property data, nor will they be able to accept bookings for this property. You can always resume updates with just a few clicks. To do so, Click the Activate button.
The property that was connected to the channel listing is no longer available

This may happen if you have removed the property or changed its status to inactive in Rentals United or your PMS without disconnecting from the Google first. In such a case, Google will no longer have access to your property data, nor will it be able to accept bookings for this property. When the property is activated in Rentals United again, updates will be resumed automatically.