Finding the best channel manager for vacation rentals, or switching to a new one, can be a daunting task. How do you know which providers will actually deliver on their promise and grow your conversions from OTAs?
The quality of channel connections is the best indicator of a channel manager’s reliability. Whether you can trust a channel manager with your distribution comes down to one thing: the provider’s ability to constantly update and maintain strong API connections. Here’s how to identify the channel management software that actually delivers on that, and how to tell if the one you’re already using still holds up.
What is a channel manager?
A channel manager is software that syncs your rates, availability, and content across every OTA and booking site you list on, Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and dozens more, from a single dashboard. Instead of updating each platform by hand and risking a double booking, you make one change and it pushes everywhere at once. The part that’s easy to overlook when comparing options: two channel managers can look identical on the surface while running on very different quality API connections underneath, and that difference is what actually determines whether you rank well and convert on each channel.
Channel managers: the core of the vacation rental tech stack
The vacation rental industry owes a lot of its growth to technology. Tech has enabled property managers to run their units efficiently, streamline operational and marketing work, and use data to scale in a way that simply wasn’t possible a decade ago.
Tech startups and established B2B providers are in fierce competition to build the best software on the market. Some offer hybrid solutions that try to cover every base, while others focus entirely on one area to build a specialized tool that does that one thing well. A specialized channel manager falls into the second camp, and that focus is exactly what enables strategic channel selection: choosing the right mix of channels for your portfolio instead of being stuck with whatever your PMS bundles in.
Property management systems and channel managers are the two most commonly adopted software solutions, and property managers increasingly treat both as core tech rather than a nice-to-have. According to the Global Short-Term Rental Tech Report, based on the largest survey conducted on vacation rental tech, 81 percent of property managers use a PMS, and 57 percent use an external channel manager on top of it. That gap tells you something: when it comes to distribution, property managers are looking for something more specialized than the built-in channel management functionality a PMS ships with.
But what makes a specialized channel manager so special?
Better channel connections: the key to effective online distribution
Connectivity is the glue that holds the vacation rental industry together. For the technology to work, different platforms need to connect and communicate with each other, and those connections need to be stable and constantly maintained.
Good channel connections are the single most important feature to look for in a channel manager for vacation rentals, and our research, outlined in our Distribution Guide, backs that up directly: 48 percent of property managers say they’d pay for an external channel manager if it had better channel connections, and 47 percent say they’d switch channel managers for the same reason.
So how do channel managers actually connect to booking sites, and what makes one connection better than another? Let’s get technical for a minute.
How do API connections work?
To ensure reliable, stable connections, a channel manager must hold a valid contract with each service it connects to. Connections must always be official, and they have to pass a certification process before going live, not just get switched on quietly.
Specialized channel managers connect to listing sites through API connections. API stands for Application Programming Interface: a defined way for two pieces of software to communicate with each other. APIs make it easier for developers to integrate new components into an existing system, which is what lets two businesses like a channel manager and an OTA exchange data through a Partner API in the first place.
When a channel manager API connects to an OTA, that connection is what automatically syncs rates, availability, content, images, promotional prices, and more, in both directions, without anyone touching a spreadsheet.
How to know if you’ve found the best channel manager for vacation rentals
Choosing the best channel manager for vacation rentals isn’t as hard as it looks. There’s one reliable signal for whether a provider is trustworthy, in other words, whether it runs strong API connections: certification.
Major OTAs run partner programs specifically to recognize and promote their best software partners, evaluating every provider they work with against a consistent bar for tech and service quality. Providers who partner with Booking.com, for example, have to meet a strict set of requirements:
- Powerful connection: synchronization has to run smoothly at all times, not just most of the time.
- Adaptability: partners have to adopt upgrades so property managers get the latest features as soon as they ship.
- Service: partners have to provide a genuinely high level of service, tools, and support that help property managers get full value from the integration.
- Commitment: partners have to invest in knowledge-sharing, educating, and helping property managers grow, not just maintain a connection and move on.
Vrbo weighs a similar set of factors when evaluating software providers, including the quality of the integration itself (how current the version is, technical performance, reliability) and how well the provider understands what property managers actually need.
When a tech provider clears an OTA’s bar, they’re awarded a badge. That badge is a reliable, third-party-verified signal of how professional and sophisticated a provider’s tech really is, which makes checking for it one of the fastest ways to tell whether a channel manager has the strong channel connections you’re looking for.
How to tell if your channel manager has updated API connections
OTAs are laser-focused on conversions, and how to generate higher-quality ones, which means they’re constantly rolling out new tools and features for property managers. For you to actually benefit from those, the API connections your channel manager uses to reach each OTA have to stay current too. It takes a genuinely dedicated channel manager to keep pace with the changes OTAs ship every year and sync availability across every connected OTA without a gap.
If you’re already using a channel manager, check whether you actually have access to the following:
- The Booking.com Promotions and Opportunities API.
- The Booking.com Guest Reviews API.
- For Vrbo, the 4.2 standard implemented with LOS pricing and price consistency.
- Syncing of extra fees and taxes on Airbnb.
If the answer to any of these is no, there’s a good chance your API connections aren’t up to date, whatever your provider’s marketing says.
Rentals United: the channel manager built for airbnb and vrbo alike
At Rentals United, channel connections are the whole job, which is why we invest heavily in keeping them updated. Our tech team spends real time and effort making sure property managers who partner with us always have access to the latest tools and services OTAs build, including working directly with Booking.com this year on improvements to our API.
We maintain more than 150 complex, certified connections so property managers can reach 90-plus listing sites, rank better, and convert more, whether they’re running an Airbnb channel manager setup, a Vrbo-first strategy, or both at once. Beyond the major OTAs, we also connect to a wide range of niche channels, so property managers can diversify their marketing mix instead of depending on one or two platforms for all their bookings.
