Google getting into VRs.. any API plans?

read someplace that Google is getting into hotel and VR space. I imagine there will be some API to display availability on google search results? anyone heard anything? right now my GMB listing shows "availability" selector, but I suspect it is driven by geo location being mapped to booking.com listing. the selector however does not work.

So makes me wonder if there any potential Goog integration.

Yep, we saw the Google Hotel API awhile back and sniffed around it. It follows an ad and CPC model partially. Booking.com listings (as you noticed) already show up there. That's based on Booking.com's distribution network feeding into Google Hotels. The Google Hotels API, itself, is something we could integrate with but it would take some politicking and approval first. They currently only support existing OTA and Travel Agency packages that they suggest you integrate with. So it'd be a middle-ware pass-off type integration (which we generally don't like to do). We are in talks with Siteminder as well. Siteminder is well known, reasonably priced and has a great reputation in the industry. They have 300+ channels so they could pick up Google Hotels, Agoda, Expedia and others that aren't on our high priority list right now.

Another option is MyAllocator, which was bought by cloudbeds. Met the former owner at a conference, some bed and breakfasts used them and seemed happy with it. They also have hundreds of channels.

Not sure pricing to you, but 1 property on MyAll seems to be $25 and 7 about $45. SiteMinder seemed to be $75 per property.

SiteMinder's page is a bit confusing, but it looks like it's $75 for 15 properties, but they don't have a lower price for less properties.

We're watching these options closely as we plan out our development for next year. There can be a "first mover" advantage on some things, but on the other hand being the one to blaze the trail can sometimes take a lot more time vs. letting somebody else figure out that path first.

All of these API's are currently very hotel oriented and many are not currently designed or priced for a couple of units, but only for 10's or 100's. So we're hoping Google (and TripAdvisor as well) will come up with models that work better in the vacation rental space and can accommodate smaller numbers of units.

If anyone is using CPC and getting good results, I'd love to hear about it!

I would not hope for Anything from TA. I have not seen an inquiry let alone a booking from them in months. They keep pushing for instant book which I am not enabling there as I know their calendars are notoriously slow to sync and they charge owner for overbooking/cancellations $200 (unless something recently changed)

Something I was thinking is, for the busier seasons I don't plan to use small/specialty OTAs such as BringFido/MisterBnB, as it brings more complexity. Someone in support mentioned that recently.

But I was considering using them for slow seasons or for Mon-Weds time frame to catch a few extra bookings.

Of course, not yet sure how to set that logic up!