How to sync other calendars with an iCal link (Gîtes de France, Clévacances, Hipcamp)

Some sites you list your rental on are not connected to Nowistay directly: Gîtes de France, Clévacances, Hipcamp, GreenGo, your own website. Most of them give you a calendar link (iCal). Add that link to your property in Nowistay and their bookings appear in your calendar and close those dates on Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Agoda, Expedia and your booking site. In return, Nowistay gives you a link for that site, so your other bookings block the dates there too.

What syncs through a calendar link

• Bookings and blocked dates of the site appear in your Calendars as bookings named after the calendar (for example “Gîtes de France”), each calendar with its own color.
• Their nights close everywhere else: on every platform connected through Nowistay and on your direct booking site.
• Cleaning missions are created and assigned like for any other booking.
• Changes follow: new bookings, new dates and cancellations are picked up every 30 minutes.

A calendar link carries dates, not prices, minimum stays or messages. Most sites send only the dates, so you add the guest’s details yourself (see below). Some send more, and Nowistay fills it in for you:

Prerequisites

1. A property connected with Nowistay PMS (the channel manager built into Nowistay). If it isn’t yet, follow How to connect the AI Co-host to my Airbnb listing (Option 1, the Nowistay Integration method).
2. An active AI Channel Manager subscription for the property.
3. The calendar link (iCal export) of each site, see the next step.

Step 1: Copy the calendar link from the site

• Gîtes de France: in your owner area, open the calendar’s iCal synchronisation and copy the export link. On some relais, the synchronisation has to be activated by the relais first.
• Clévacances: in your owner area, copy the calendar export link of your rental.
• Hipcamp: in your dashboard, open External calendars, add a calendar for your site and copy its Export link.
• Any other site: look for “export calendar”, “iCal” or “calendar sync” in your host area.

For Gîtes de France and Clévacances links, Nowistay adjusts the link’s settings automatically when you save it: it keeps the site’s bookings and your owner blocks, and leaves out the long periods closed for sale and the copies of your other calendars.

Step 2: Add the link in Nowistay

1. Go to Properties.
2. On the property card, open the ⋯ menu and click Synchronization.
3. In the Nowistay section, under Other calendars (iCal), click Add a calendar link.
4. In Name, write the name of the site (for example “Gîtes de France”). It is shown on the bookings and in the calendar.
5. Paste the link into Calendar link (iCal) and click Save.

[Screenshot needed: the Other calendars (iCal) section with a Gîtes de France calendar card]

Nowistay checks the link and imports the bookings within a minute. You can add up to 5 calendars per property.

Links from Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo (Abritel), Agoda and Expedia are refused: these platforms connect fully to Nowistay (prices, bookings, messages). Use Add a booking platform (OTA) in the same section instead.

Step 3: Give your Nowistay link to the site

Each calendar card shows Your Nowistay link for followed by the calendar’s name. Copy that link and paste it into the site’s calendar import field, so that your Airbnb, Booking.com and other bookings block the dates there too.

• Each calendar has its own link: it contains every busy night of the property except that site’s own bookings, so a site never gets its own bookings back.
• For Gîtes de France, send the link to your relais: the relais adds it to your calendar.
• The link only shares dates (“Booked” or “Unavailable”), never guest details or prices.

Add the guest’s details and the amount

When the site doesn’t send them, add them on the booking, like for an Airbnb or Booking.com booking:

• Guest details: open the booking in Bookings, click the pencil (Edit) next to the guest details and fill in First name, Last name, Email and Phone (with the international prefix).
• Amount: in the Financial section of the booking, click the pencil (Edit financial details) and enter the total, cleaning fee and tax.

Your automatic guest messages are scheduled like for any booking, and go out once the booking has a way to reach the guest. When a new booking arrives with no email and no phone, Nowistay emails you so you can add one in time.

The dates and the cancellation always follow the site: change them there, Nowistay updates the booking at the next sync.

How the sync behaves

• Every 30 minutes, Nowistay reads each calendar again. To read it now, open the ⋯ menu of the calendar card and click Sync now.
• New booking: it appears with its cleaning mission, and its nights close on your other platforms.
• Changed dates: the booking moves, the freed nights reopen, the cleaning mission follows.
• Cancelled booking (it disappears from the site’s calendar): the booking is cancelled in Nowistay, its nights reopen and its cleaning mission is cancelled. Bookings already started or past are never cancelled.
• Owner blocks: a calendar link doesn’t tell a booking from a block, so dates you block on the site also appear as a booking, with a cleaning mission you can delete.
• Overlap: if the site’s booking falls on nights already booked elsewhere, it is imported anyway and shows as a double booking in your calendar.
• Empty calendar: if the link suddenly returns no booking at all, Nowistay cancels nothing (it protects you from a site outage) and the card says “This calendar is empty”. If the bookings are really gone, remove the calendar.
• Copies of your other bookings: some sites send back the dates they received from Nowistay. Nowistay recognizes them and doesn’t import them twice. When a copy matches a booking cancelled in the last 48 hours, the card shows To check with its dates: if it is a real booking on that site, add it in Nowistay.

In Calendars, when Color bookings by source is on in the calendar settings, hover or tap Channels in the legend to see the color of each calendar.

Edit or remove a calendar

Open the ⋯ menu of the calendar card:

• Edit link changes the name or the link (for example when the site gives you a new one). Bookings already imported are kept and matched again.
• Remove stops the sync: the calendar’s upcoming bookings are cancelled in Nowistay and their nights reopen on your other platforms. Past bookings stay in your history.