How to set up your hotel inventory

The hotel list contains all the properties and property information that a partner wishes to show on Google. Partners provide the source data in a CSV or XML file that contains the physical attributes of the property, such as name, address, GeoCode locations, phone numbers, and website URLs.

Before you begin

Listing requirements

To be displayed on Google, a property in your hotel list must meet the listing requirements. Common examples of ineligible properties include apartments, long term stays (>30 days), and vacation rentals. If you wish to add vacation rentals to your property list, refer to VR partners: Starter guide.

You can send seasonal or temporarily closed properties for listing but the properties that are permanently closed are ineligible.

Data quality

Hotel list data must match information present in Google Maps’ proprietary list of businesses to successfully be published. Always provide as much accurate property information as possible, including phone numbers and latitude and longitude coordinates, and ensure that the information provided matches the hotel information presented on Google Business Profile and Google Maps.

If your property has missing or incorrect information, it may not be matched, and you won't be able to advertise it. You can see a list of which hotels are matched and which have data issues on the "Properties" page. Learn more about resolving property match issues with manual match

For new and onboarding partners: A low-match rate is typical during the onboarding process. Google recommends uploading all your hotels initially, and selecting a fraction of matched hotels to start sending prices for. In parallel to verifying your price feed setup, please continue to improve your hotel list match rate. While not required, Google recommends working towards a long-term match rate of greater than 90%.

Instructions

1. Choose how to deliver your hotel list

You can either utilize hotel list upload to manually upload your hotel list as a CSV or XML file, or utilize hotel list pull (formerly known as hotel list feed) to host an XML files on your server. The hotel list upload delivery mode supports single file manual uploads that are generally less than 50,000 properties in size. For those files, Google recommends that you use the CSV syntax for integrations with basic hotel content listed under a single language.

For more detailed hotel content, you can use the XML syntax. If you plan to update your hotel information less frequently, provide hotel content information in a single language, and have less than 50,000 properties, Google recommends utilizing the hotel list upload delivery mode uploading your hotel list in Hotel Center.

Note: If you expect to update your hotel list more frequently or require content in multiple languages, it's highly recommended to implement hotel list pull with Google by hosting an XML file on your own server. Google will frequently pull the latest files available and automatically publish or update content to your account. Doing so will simplify any manual steps needed to upload and publish files every time an update is required.

Please contact the Hotel Ads support team if you’d like to implement a hotel list pull.

2. Create your hotel list

Once you have chosen the delivery mode for setting up your hotel list, create the CSV or XML files.

CSV files

CSV syntax

A hotel list CSV file consists of a single header row with the names of the columns, plus an additional row for each hotel in the feed.

The first row specifies the names of the columns to be used in the feed. For example:

id,name,addr1,addr2,addr3,city,province,postal_code,country,phone,latitude,longitude

Not all fields are required. The following table describes each of the available fields:

Column	Required?	Description
`id`	Required	A unique identifier for the hotel. This value must be unique to your site.
`name`	Required	The name of the hotel. For example, "Mabel's Gabels".
`address`	Required*	The freeform full address of the hotel. For example, “66 Acacia Avenue, 6th Floor, Suite 610, Boston, Massachusetts, 02467". Note: If you have already provided `addr1`, `city`, `province`, or `postal_code`, don't include the `address` field. Likewise, if you have already provided the `address` field, don't include the `addr1`, `city`, `province`, or `postal code`.
`addr1`	Required	The primary street address of the hotel. For example, "66 Acacia Avenue". Note that P.O. boxes or other mailing-only addresses aren't considered full physical addresses.
`addr2`	Optional	The optional secondary street address of the hotel. For example, "6th Floor".
`addr3`	Optional	A third optional portion of the street address of the hotel. For example, "Suite 610".
`city`	Required	The hotel's city. For example, "London".
`province`	Required	The hotel's state, province, or region. For example, "Greater London" or "Massachusetts".
`postal_code`	Required	The hotel's postal code. For example, "90210".
`country`	Required	The hotel's country. The value must be an ISO 3116 uppercase 2-letter country code. For example, United States is "US" and Canada is "CA".
`phone`	Required*	The main voice telephone number for the hotel. For example, "617-867-5309".
`latitude`	Required*	The latitude that corresponds to the location of the listing. For example, "37.423738".
`longitude`	Required*	The longitude that corresponds to the location of the listing. For example, "-122.090101".
`category`	Optional	The category of the hotel. For example, “Hotel”, “Bed and Breakfast”, or “Motel”.
`star_rating`	Optional	The hotel class in terms of star ratings. The value must be a whole number between 1 and 5 inclusive or blank. For example, “1” for a one star hotel, “5” for a five star hotel, or “” for an unknown star rating.
`hotel_brand`	Optional	The brand to which this hotel belongs. For example, “Marriott” or “Hilton”.
`alternate_hotel_id`	Optional	An alternate identifier for your property. Having separate IDs is useful in instances where you might have different property identifiers for your feed information versus booking engine.
`custom_0`	Optional	Any string-typed custom attribute. These attributes won’t be displayed to users.
`custom_1`	Optional
`custom_2`	Optional
`custom_3`	Optional
`custom_4`	Optional
*Either a phone number OR latitude and longitude coordinates is required. Both are preferred.

When specifying data in your feed, keep the following guidelines in mind:

Google recommends that you edit the data with Google Sheets, Excel, or other spreadsheet applications and export the file as a CSV.
The columns can be in any order you choose, but the column names must match the values above.
All columns must be separated with a comma.
If one of the values contains a comma, you must surround the value with quotes. For example, "Emerson, Lake, and Powell Hotel".
If no listings contain a value for a particular column, you can leave out the column (unless it's required).

Freeform addresses

CSV examples

XML Files

For details about creating a hotel list file using XML, see the Hotel List XML Reference.

3. Upload or host your hotel list

To host your own hotel list and utilize hotel list pull, see Hosting the XML feed on your server. Alternatively, to access Hotel Center and manually upload your hotel list using hotel list upload:

In your Hotel Center account, select Properties from the "Navigation" menu.
Click on Settings.
- For first-time users, answer the setup questions, including the type of file you want to use for your hotel list.
Verify that your hotel list content or schema matches our formatting criteria, then upload your CSV or XML file. (Note: File upload may take up to one hour to complete.)
- If your file is invalid, you’ll receive an error message. Make any necessary changes and upload again.
You’ll receive a confirmation email when your file is successfully uploaded on Hotel Center. Once upload is confirmed, return to the ”Property Settings” page to publish your hotel list. You can adjust your notification settings on the “Account settings” page by selecting the “Alerts” category.

4. Publish your hotel list (hotel list upload only)

After you have uploaded at least one hotel list, you can choose which one to use as the live version.

To choose the live hotel list:

In your Hotel Center account, select Properties from the "Navigation" menu.
Click Settings.
On the "Publish" tab, click Publish to set your list live. Publishing may take one business day to process.

After your hotel list is published, check the “Properties” page in Hotel Center to see which hotels, if any, didn't match. Learn how to resolve property match issues with manual match

You can restore previous uploads by hovering your mouse over the file name and clicking "Republish this file".

5. Update your existing hotel list (hotel list upload only)

Once a hotel list is successfully published, you can update it by uploading an edited list to overwrite the previous version.

To update a hotel list:

Download the hotel list that you would like to update. Recently uploaded hotel lists will be listed under the “Previously Uploaded” column.
Edit the hotel list with the desired changes.
Reupload the hotel list on the “Property Settings” page.
- Refer to the above instructions in the Upload or host your hotel list section to upload the new file.

After 6 months of account inactivity, your hotel list feed may be removed from the system. If your feed is removed and you plan to resume activity, contact support.

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How to set up your hotel inventory

Before you begin

Listing requirements

Data quality

Instructions

1. Choose how to deliver your hotel list

2. Create your hotel list

CSV files

Freeform addresses

CSV examples

XML Files

3. Upload or host your hotel list

4. Publish your hotel list (hotel list upload only)

5. Update your existing hotel list (hotel list upload only)

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