Creating a free channel manager for small hosts

[Allan361]

Hi hosts, I’m an engineer and I’m thinking about creating a channel manager tool/app and making it for free for all (i.e. open-source). What functionality would you like to see it have?

Please note: I know there are a lot of channel managers made for property managers, I'm asking specifically for small hosts who only manage your own homes.

[Ann72]

I'm researching channel managers right now @Allan361.  With three listings on just three platforms, I don't need much.  Wishlist would be:

*integrated calendar

*integrated inbox showing listing and platform in preview (Airbnb doesn't even show the listing associated with a guest's message in preview)

*ability to share calendar with my housekeeping and caretaking staff - but the most important detail here is that I would want to choose what information to share with them.  Airbnb does not allow members of teams to have differing permissions, which is just ludicrous.

*integrated pricing across platforms.  A hybrid of manual and dynamic pricing works best for me.

There are an insane number of channel managers out there, but as you say it's possible many were developed for innkeepers, hotel managers, and the like.  I'm looking into HostTools, https://hosttools.com/, whose founder has spent a good amount of time here in the community center getting to know what hosts care about.

[Paul1255]

@Ann72  Can fully recommend host tools Ann, makes Airbnb life so much  easier!

They have just launched multi user management, which will be great for working with housekeepers etc 🙂

[Ann72]

Thank you, @Paul1255!  Your recommendation is fantastic, as I know you manage multiple properties, and will put me across the finish line!

[Doneen0]

@Allan361 I only have one listing, but we would like to list it on several platforms.  Mostly I just need calendar syncing to avoid double bookings.

[Simone1089]

Hi Allan, 

thanks for what you are doing, I'm a big fan of opensource. I'm interested in this. Could you please drop me an email to

**

Thank you!!!
S.

**[E-mail address removed due to safety reasons - Community Center Guidelines]

[Aniq60]

Thank you so much for what you are doing Allan! Interested to know your progess 🙂 

[Helen3]

Presumably you're developing this because you believe there's a gap in the market @Allan361 

what do you see as the gaps in the market that other channel managers /Airbnb aren't providing ??

[Alex221]

This is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for.  I rent out two rooms in my house, each with it's own listing and then a third listing for both rooms. The calendars sync up within AirBnB so if one room gets booked the option for both rooms becomes unavailable right away (or vice versa). But bookings across platforms (AirBnB <-> Booking.com) take too long, are unreliable and have resulted in at least one double-booked room.  It's not worth the cost of $20+ per month per listing to buy a service that does that.  I'm really curious what you've come up with.

[Johnny420]

Hi Allan,

How did you get on? Keen to hear how it progresses? 

Cheers,

Johnny

[Elaine701]

@Allan361 

We try to automate our business as much as possible.

We have a smart home control system which adapts some aspects of the villa to the current guest. We have a display in the villa which displays local information (shopping, events, attractions, house rules, etc) and it is personalised for each guest (based on nationality/language, number of guests, whether they have children/infants... etc.). The gate automatically assigns an entry code for each guest... etc...

It's all in the interest of providing a seamless, easy and enjoyable experience for guests. Most guests have no idea that the villa has been somewhat customised for them. It happens invisibly to them. And that leads to good reviews and return guests.

We also keep our own calendar in the cloud, which contains our entire history with links to the guest database we keep. We can store guest preference information, for example, their preferred language, what house temperature they prefer, what type of music, cleaning intervals, etc... ... and we have a backoffice that our guests can access to set all of their preferences and order additional services (e.g.,  a private chef, cleaning, show tickets, etc), so that it's all automatically set up and arranged before their next arrival. 

We can obtain very basic information using the calendar sync function, but I can't get detailed guest information nor number of guests, etc. And so it requires manually entering everything. I would be very helpful if we could automatically download all guest information.

We also have an automated tax declaration system which our accountant can access to download preformatted income/expense statements - minimising the burden of manual entry of this data, so I would like to automatically download our income statements and automatically input it into our accounting system, to further minimise the manual entry of that data. 

I have looked at the Airbnb API, but they don't allow small proprietors to access it. 

So, I'd love to be able to access these things, via a PHP script... It would save an enormous amount of time - and minimise mistakes from human error.

What might you be able to provide?

[Scott2113]

Is this software ready?  Would love to test.  Scott, Schlafman's Hollow, Lincoln, Me.