Self-hosted Direct sites

Direct hosts who host their own sites can now link their site to Google Vacation Rentals, add a property search widget to their site, and apply custom color schemes to their widgets and booking flow. To enable these features, you'll need to add widgets to your site and tell Hospitable the URL for each of your property pages, which also allows us to help monitor your site health. Full instructions here.

Autohost ID verification

We now show watermarked ID verification images and the guest selfie in the Inbox for Direct Premium reservations. Some hosts need to collect IDs, and it didn't make sense to ask the guest to share them a second time.

Ad hoc charges

There is a new tax subject for Direct Basic hosts, Miscellaneous fees, which we will calculate when you collect additional payments from guests. More info: Send or request money

Auto-fill returning guest info

When creating a manual reservation, if you type the first few letters of a guest name or email, we now search your past reservations and suggest any matches to help save you time entering their info. This will expand soon into the Direct quote feature.

Issue: GVR stuck in pending

We resolved an issue with how our images sync with Google that was causing some hosts to see their properties stuck indefinitely in a pending status. Now that the issue is resolved, Google can correctly process the images over the next several days and the impacted properties should begin showing up on Google Travel soon. Sorry for the delay!

If you have your Hospitable preferences enabled for beta features, then you now have early access to our new and improved ChatGPT prompt.

This upgrade will allow you to use the Suggest with AI feature in the Hospitable inbox to answer even more questions related to your property, rules, policies, as well as reservation details.

After successful beta testing, the Nuki smart locks integration is now launched for all users!

Just go to your Apps page, select the Nuki app card, and click Connect. We'll start creating and managing the codes for all your reservations right away!

Be sure you have the required keypad accessory connected:

Check out our help article to see which Nuki locks we support

We heard you! Based on our recent Town Hall feedback, our team of engineers (s/o Ben Davies) made some swift changes to the Inbox view on our mobile apps to help you see more important information at first glance

Log in to the Hospitable mobile app for an improved and simpler Inbox.

If you have your Hospitable preferences enabled for beta features, then you now have early access to integrate your Nuki smart locks!

Just go to your Apps page, select the IglooHome app card, and click Connect. We'll start creating and managing the codes for all your reservations right away!

Be sure you have the required keypad accessory connected:

Check out our help article to see which Nuki locks we support

Our new property search feature is now live for Hospitable Direct sites, allowing guests to search availability across all of your properties, with results displayed on a map. The feature is opt-in for existing sites, so you can turn it on whenever you're ready from within your site settings. Learn how to customize the locations you display in our support article: How to setup property search.
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We hope to release property search as a widget for non-Hospitable sites in the next 2-3 weeks.

💳 Ad hoc charges

The Send or receive money button can now be used to request any additional payment from guests on Direct Basic and Premium reservations. We send an email to the guest with a payment link and display an event in the Inbox when the payment is received. Note that these payments will have any applicable taxes deducted, and for Premium, the 6% guest service fee is deducted, while Basic customers will have the normal payment processing fees deducted by Stripe.
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🐾 Pet fees

We now allow guests to enter their pet count, not including service animals, in the Direct booking widget. We collect any fee you set in your Property Pricing page (pulled from Airbnb, initially). Finally!!!

🔎 Property search

The private pilot of our new property search widget has been going really well. We plan to release the widget as an option for all Hospitable sites on Monday. Then we will do the work to provide the widget for our customers using non-Hospitable sites, which as an added bonus, will allow us to list non-Hospitable sites on Google Vacation Rentals.
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🇵🇷 Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands

We launched Direct Premium USA earlier this year claiming that it included properties located in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, but we were missing a few steps. We've fixed that and now hosts there are able to add local payout methods for Premium.

Your Inbox is now powered by GPT-4 Turbo 🤖 🚀

Hospitable is now using GPT-4 Turbo, the latest ChatGPT model by OpenAI, to recommend even better suggestions inside your Hospitable Inbox.

This upgrade will bring improved speed and accuracy to AI Suggestions, allowing you to be the best host you can be. Head over to any conversation in your Inbox to give it a try!

We're committed to making your hosting experience smoother and more reliable. To achieve this, we're introducing an "always on" guest code communication message.

What to Expect

Enhanced Reliability: This message is tied to enabling backup codes, further reducing the chances of sending an incorrect code to your guest.

Streamlined Setups: The message is sent 10 minutes before a code becomes active, speeding up new smart lock setups.

Seamless Integration: This feature won't affect your current messaging setup, allowing you to continue using the %smartlock_code% short code in other messages.

Dynamic Messaging: Our message adapts to whether a code has been previously communicated to the guest, serving as a helpful reminder when needed.

Backup Codes - Ensuring Reliability:

For those who aren't aware, our backup codes feature is available to all users with beta features enabled. It guarantees a functional code is sent to your guest, even if the initial code setup fails.

Soon, this feature will be activated by default for all users, but consider enabling it early for added reliability!

Our success rate for users with backup codes enabled is an impressive 99.5%, with most failures due to an account needing to be reconnected.

Learn more about these features here.

Searching ranking boost 🚀

Google is now displaying your property type (entire house, apartment, villa, etc) and your aggregate review score from connected OTA channels. Both of these attributes improve your ranking in search results and should boost conversions.

Custom sites coming soon

Our GVR integration currently only supports Hospitable sites (including custom domains). We are starting work next week on the features needed to support custom sites that are using Hospitable booking widgets. Stay tuned for good news!