Sync Airbnb with your Wix site without double bookings
By Caner Kaya, Kayabyte
If you rent out a cabin or apartment on Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com and also take bookings on your own Wix site, the calendars are kept in step with iCal links. Each site publishes a link with its booked nights, and the other sites read that link every so often. Nothing is instant, so there is always a short window where the same nights could be booked twice.
This guide explains how iCal sync works, how to set it up step by step, how often each side updates, and how to keep that window small.
How iCal calendar sync works
An iCal link is a web address ending in .ics, or similar, that returns a calendar file. For a rental, it lists booked or blocked nights. It doesn’t include prices, guest names or messages.
Sync always runs in two directions, as two separate links:
- Export: each site gives you a link with its own bookings.
- Import: you paste the other site’s link into each site, and that site blocks those nights.
Every site fetches the links it imports on its own schedule. That schedule is the whole story of double bookings: until the next fetch, a site doesn’t know about a booking made elsewhere.
What Wix can do on its own
Wix’s built-in options for rentals read or send iCal in only one direction:
- Wix Hotels by HotelRunner can send your availability to Airbnb through its Airbnb iCal connection, but “No data will be received from Airbnb iCal”. Airbnb reservations have to be entered by hand (Wix guide). It needs a Premium plan.
- The previous Wix Hotels can import an iCal link, one way, “from iCal to the Wix Calendar”, with a separate link for each room type (Hotels > Reservations > iCal, Wix guide).
- Wix Bookings syncs with your primary Google Calendar only, and all-day events don’t block time (Wix guide). An Airbnb calendar added to Google is a separate calendar, so it doesn’t block your Wix availability.
Neither Hotels article says how often the sync runs. I compared the options in more detail in Holiday rental direct bookings on Wix.
Step 1: get the export link from each booking site
Airbnb. Go to Calendar, select the listing, click Availability, and under Connect calendars click Connect to another website. Copy the Airbnb calendar link (Airbnb help).
Vrbo. Open the listing’s calendar settings and find the export link under Calendar sync. Vrbo’s help has a separate article, “Export your Vrbo calendar”, with the current steps.
Booking.com. In the extranet, the calendar sync settings are under Rates & availability, then Sync calendars. Booking.com changes its extranet menus from time to time, so if you can’t find it, search its partner help for “sync calendars”.
Step 2: import those links into your own site
Paste each link into whatever runs the calendar on your site, one link per listing. If a link starts with webcal://, change it to https://. Vrbo gives the same advice in its own help.
Step 3: give your site’s link to each booking site
Your site needs its own export link with your direct bookings. Then:
- Airbnb: same place as above, Availability > Connect calendars > Connect to another website. Paste the link, name the calendar and click Add calendar. Airbnb only accepts links that end in .ics.
- Vrbo: Calendar > Settings > Availability, then under Calendar sync choose Connect calendars, Manage imported calendars and Import a calendar (Vrbo help).
- Booking.com: in Sync calendars, add your link as an imported calendar.
Don’t import a site’s own link back into itself, and don’t chain calendars through Google Calendar. Each extra hop adds another wait.
How often each side updates
| Who reads the link | How often | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Airbnb | About every 3 hours. You can click Refresh to check sooner, a limited number of times | Airbnb help |
| Vrbo | Vrbo’s help says calendars sync every 30 minutes, and imported events may take up to 20 minutes to appear | Vrbo help |
| Booking.com | Not published in anything I could find | |
| Your site | Depends on the tool you use |
The slowest reader sets your risk. If a guest books directly on your site at 10:00, Airbnb may not block those nights until around 13:00. Someone on Airbnb could book the same nights in between.
How to keep the double-booking window small
- After a direct booking, refresh the other sites. In Airbnb, open the connected calendar and click Refresh. It’s the biggest single gain, because Airbnb’s own schedule is the slowest.
- After an Airbnb booking, refresh your own site if your tool has an import button, rather than waiting for the next scheduled read.
- Block popular dates by hand when you’re close to fully booked, such as a holiday weekend. Airbnb notes that nights you block on another calendar “may or may not be blocked on Airbnb”, so block them on Airbnb directly too.
- Check the last update time. Airbnb shows when each connected calendar last updated. If one stops updating, the link may have changed.
- Have a plan for the rare overlap. Decide in advance which booking you honour and what you offer the other guest.
An app that handles both directions
Full disclosure: I built Stay Direct. It adds a booking calendar to your Wix site for each property, with nightly prices, minimum stays and payment through your site’s own checkout. For calendar sync, each property has:
- An export link with your confirmed direct bookings and the nights you block by hand. It doesn’t include the bookings it imported, so calendars never echo each other. You can make a new link if the old one has been shared too widely. Anyone with the link sees which nights are booked, not who booked.
- Imports of up to 10 calendar links (Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com or Google Calendar). Imported nights become unavailable on your site. Stay Direct reads each link about every 15 minutes, and an Import now button reads it straight away. If a link fails, the dashboard shows the error.
The check-out day of an imported stay stays free for a new arrival, so back-to-back stays still work.
What it doesn’t remove is the window described above:
- Your site learns about an Airbnb booking within about 15 minutes, or at once with Import now.
- Airbnb learns about a direct booking only when it next reads your link, which can take about 3 hours unless you click Refresh in Airbnb.
So a double booking is still possible in that window, and you’d sort it out yourself. iCal shares dates only, not prices or guest details. Online payments need a Wix Premium plan that accepts payments and a connected payment provider. The free plan covers one property.
It’s on the Wix App Market.
FAQ
Is iCal sync real-time? No. Each site fetches the other links on its own schedule, from minutes to hours. Channel managers that connect to the booking sites directly, rather than through iCal, usually update faster.
Can Wix import my Airbnb calendar? The previous Wix Hotels can import an iCal link. Wix Hotels by HotelRunner sends availability to Airbnb but doesn’t receive Airbnb bookings. Wix Bookings doesn’t read Airbnb calendars.
Does iCal sync prices or guest details? No. Only booked or blocked dates. Keep prices up to date on each site yourself.
Why are dates I blocked on my site still open on Airbnb? Either Airbnb hasn’t read your link since you blocked them, so click Refresh, or Airbnb didn’t take the block. Airbnb says blocked nights from other calendars may or may not be blocked, so block them on Airbnb too.
Last checked: 17 October 2026