VR property managers: Starter guide overview

Professional property management companies (property managers) are businesses contracted, authorised or licensed by property owners to market, distribute, authorise and manage bookings on their behalf. Property managers act as the Merchant of Record on booking transactions with guests and manage day-to-day operations, including front-end and back-end operations, on-site property operations and pre-/post-stay guest support.

This article covers the benefits of becoming a holiday rentals on Google partner as a property manager, describes the different eligibility requirements and directs you on how to get started.

The benefits of becoming a holiday rentals on Google partner

Hundreds of millions of travellers around the world search for holiday rentals and other lodging on Google every day. As a Google holiday rentals partner, you'll:

• Expand your reach: Easily engage with more customers.
• Widen distribution channels: Display your aggregated holiday rental listings on Google Search, Maps, Assistant and other services on both desktop and mobile devices.
• Promote your listings at no cost: Becoming a Google holiday rentals partner is free, with no advertising spend required.
• Gain performance insights: Learn more about listing performance and user interactions, and apply data insights to boost bookings.
• Broaden your audience: Share holiday rentals with Google to reach new travellers who are interested in lodging options beyond hotels.
• Own your customer relationships: Support your customers throughout the transaction and maintain customer relationship touchpoints.

Property manager benefits

Make your properties more noticeable to travellers	Increase the visibility of your brand	Capture free direct bookings
Reach millions of travellers who use Google to research travel and find new travellers who may have been initially drawn to hotels but are now open to alternative lodging.	Each listing that you share with Google will be associated with your property management brand and its unique value and landing page.	Referrals are free.

Learn more about why users book holiday rentals through Google

Connectivity path eligibility

Google recommends different paths for property management companies to each connect the inventory that they manage to Google. To be considered for a direct feed integration, property management companies must meet certain minimum requirements.

Confirm your eligibility before proceeding with integration.

If your company's technical capabilities are outside the guidelines for a direct integration, we recommend working with one of our approved connectivity providers who can provide connectivity for your business, regardless of the number of listings that you manage. You must have a suitable direct booking website and have the ability to provide pricing and availability to one of Google's approved connectivity providers.

Currently ineligible

These listing categories aren't currently eligible to be listed in Google's holiday rental search results:

• Individual homeowners
• Peer-to-peer rentals
• Individual rooms
• Partial homes

Individual homeowners aren't currently eligible for a Google Business Profile for their physical home, and individual or subleased homes aren't considered businesses for the purposes of Google's holiday rental search results.

Software connectivity partner

For professional property managers with fewer than 500 properties, we strongly recommend connecting your professionally managed inventory via an approved connectivity provider to have your properties shown on Google.

Google has partnered with a broad range of holiday rental distribution software and marketing providers to make it easier for property managers of any size to get listed on Google. Our network of approved connectivity providers helps companies get listed on Google in instances where Google isn't able to support a direct feed connection to your company's inventory.

We're working hard to continually add more connectivity partners in all regions globally. If you currently work with a connectivity provider that isn't yet a Google partner, please let us know about your currently unsupported holiday rental management software provider.

Note: If you have fewer than 500 properties and would still prefer to connect directly, Google will consider direct connection only if your company is able to provide:

• An accurate, real-time price feed
• A quality landing page for direct bookings (including booking engine functionality)

Direct integration with Google

Professional property managers with at least 500 properties are eligible for direct integration if they're also able to assign a designated partner technical contact capable of providing price and availability feeds.

If you believe that your property management company meets the requirements for direct integration, follow the steps below to get started. We look forward to partnering with you.

Getting started

The integration process typically takes 8 to 12 weeks once we've received your property list, but some partners have taken as little as 4 weeks to complete their integration and go live on Google.

• Review the steps required to integrate holiday rental inventory, rates and availability with Google.
• Complete the holiday rentals interest form and a holiday rentals specialist from Google will be in touch.