Master Calendars

What is a Master Calendar

A Master Calendar is a form of ical enabled online calendar of your rooms/properties/etc. availability which you've chosen to be the single source of all availability dates.

The 'Master' means it is the controlling calendar that all other calendars should read and sync to.

When the Master Calendar is updated then all other websites and portals linked to it can sync their calendars from the Master. In Nomad Stays case we update from your master every hour.

Why Use a Master Calendar

The travel industry uses the internet format called iCalendar (iCal for short) to manage the availability of single rooms/properties/etc. (Larger properties don't tend to manage each room individually. They manage groups or 'types' of rooms together.)

Because iCal is an internet standard its easy to share information between companies.

Example:

Company A sends a message to Company B that the room is full on a certain night.
Company B's computers read the ical message and block the date in its own system.
If Company A has a two-way relationship with Company B then
- Company A can read Company B's calendars too and block dates for bookings made a Company B that Company A wasn't aware of before.

The problem:

Travel suppliers often have many different websites and portals they list themselves on.

Two-way relationships between every calendar then becomes a nightmare.

For example if you're listed on 5 different websites with availability calendars, then to completed synchronise your calendars requires each different listing website to read all the other 4 website calendars as well.

Instead We Use a Single 'Master' Calendar

With a single calendar acting as the 'master' all other website just need to read from the master in order to understand your availability. This is a one-way sync and is much easier to manage with much less effort and technical understanding.

The weakness of the master calendar approach is that each booking made on a servant website needs to be entered into the Master calendar so everyone else knows those dates are now closed. Updating your master calendar for new bookings on other websites is an important step to ensure no double bookings.

iCal Syncing Requires a Master Calendar

Our Boutique System (small stays) requires you to have a master ical enabled calendar somewhere.

If you don't use a Channel Manager, or your Channel Manager isn't iCal enabled we find most stays tend to use high volume leisure sites like booking.com, airbnb and expedia.

When you setup your room availability on Nomad Stays using our Boutique System (or want ical on your Commercial system) you will insert the URL address of your master calendar. Our system will then read from your master calendar each hour and ensure we are always up to date on your availability as set my your master calendar.