Real-time two-way Google Calendar sync between your Smoobu channel manager and Google Calendar. Reservations appear within 5 seconds. Personal blocks you add in Google propagate back to Smoobu. Airbnb calendar integration without the iCal-feed lag most hosts suffer through.
Every PMS ships an iCal feed. You can already subscribe your Google Calendar to Smoobu's feed today, without Virtual Host AI. It's been possible for years. But raw iCal subscriptions fail for three reasons — the reasons real Smoobu Google Calendar sync has to solve properly.
Google only re-fetches subscribed iCal URLs every 12–24 hours. A booking that came in this morning might show up in your calendar tomorrow — or not at all if a cache misses. Our two-way calendar sync uses push updates: Smoobu webhook → Google Calendar API, in under 10 seconds.
The raw iCal feed usually shows "Reserved" as the event title with no guest name, no reservation ID, no arrival time, no channel. Our vacation rental booking calendar events carry: guest name, apartment display name, check-in/checkout times, booking channel (Airbnb, Booking.com, direct), reservation ID, and color coding per apartment.
If you add an event to Google Calendar to block off an apartment for your own use, it doesn't go back to Smoobu. Your PMS keeps accepting bookings on those dates. Our Smoobu iCal alternative is bidirectional: block a date in Google Calendar, Smoobu blocks it too.
When a booking lands in Smoobu, we receive it via webhook in 2–5 seconds. We update the linked Google Calendar via the Google Calendar API in another 2–5 seconds. Total latency from Smoobu change to Google Calendar update: under 10 seconds, typically under 5.
This matters most for last-minute bookings. A same-day booking on Airbnb hits your Google Calendar (and your cleaner's) before the guest has finished paying.
Every event on your Smoobu Google Calendar sync carries useful context. Not just "Reserved."
Every changeover day gets a dedicated cleaning event — typically 11:00 to 15:00 — as a separate Google Calendar entry. Share that event with your cleaner's Google account and they see their turnovers for the week without ever logging into Smoobu.
See the full cleaning coordination page for how we handle cleaner portals and on-site turnover tracking.
This is the feature most hosts don't realize they need until they have it. Create an event in the apartment's Google Calendar — title it "Blocked" or "Personal use" — and we propagate the dates back to Smoobu as a block. Your PMS stops taking bookings automatically.
Use cases that come up weekly: a friend visiting, maintenance visits, a week you want off-market to deep-clean, a holiday at your own apartment. Previously each required opening Smoobu on a laptop and clicking through. With short-term rental scheduling done right, you add an event in Google Calendar and it just works.
Calendar sync is foundational — the rest of the platform depends on it.
The AI autopilot uses calendar data to give guests accurate arrival-time answers and knows which day you're off the clock.
Gap-day detection for late-checkout and extra-night offers runs entirely off your calendar.
Cleaning windows computed from the calendar, shared with your cleaner in their own Google Calendar.
Real-time sync, rich metadata, bidirectional blocking. Included on Pro and Premium.