Host Domination Booking Engine: Calendar Sync & Reservation System

Transform your WordPress website into a powerful direct booking channel with calendar synchronization for Airbnb, Booking.com and other OTAs!

Host Domination Booking Engine is a WordPress booking engine, reservation request system and iCal calendar synchronization plugin designed for vacation rentals, holiday homes, apartments, villas, bed and breakfasts, guest houses, small hotels and other accommodation businesses.

Take a look at the live demo website and see for yourself what you can build and manage with Host Domination Booking Engine, including the option to show or hide prices in the calendar.

• Booking Engine Free Demo

The plugin is open source, self-hosted and compatible with any WordPress theme. It works directly inside your WordPress website without requiring a mandatory Host Domination cloud account or a subscription to a proprietary booking platform. The Free version does not expire.

Hosts and property managers can display an availability calendar, receive direct booking requests, review guest details in WordPress and synchronize unavailable dates through standard iCal and ICS calendar feeds.

The Free version can automatically check one connected external iCal feed approximately every 30 minutes and also provides a manual Refresh Calendars option.

Host Domination Booking Engine can be used alongside Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo and other OTA or reservation platforms that provide a compatible iCal or ICS URL. You can continue using the booking channels you already work with while adding a direct booking form to your own website.

Direct booking requests from your WordPress website

Turn your WordPress website into an additional direct booking channel.

Guests can select and submit:

• Check-in and check-out dates
• Number of guests
• Full name
• Email address
• Contact phone number
• Additional notes
• Mandatory Privacy Policy consent before submission

New requests appear in the WordPress administration area. Administrators can review, confirm, reject or delete them.

Pending requests do not become confirmed reservations automatically. Once a request is confirmed, its dates are included in the internal availability calendar and in the website iCal export feed.

The booking engine can be added to Gutenberg, Elementor or another WordPress page builder that supports shortcodes.

Each calendar generates its own shortcode. For example:

[hdbe_booking_calendar id=”123″]

Replace 123 with the ID shown in the Created Calendars table after saving your calendar.

Front-end availability calendar

Display a responsive booking calendar that allows guests to select arrival and departure dates directly from your website.

The calendar shows:

• Available dates
• Unavailable dates
• Confirmed website reservations
• Reservations imported from external iCal feeds
• Selectable check-in and check-out boundaries
• The minimum stay required
• An optional base price per night

Today can be selected when it is available. Guests can select dates up to 13 months in advance.

The calendar is suitable for:

• Vacation rentals
• Holiday apartments
• Villas
• Guest houses
• Bed and breakfasts
• Small hotels
• Rooms
• Campsites
• Short-term rentals
• Property rental businesses

Calendar and accommodation settings

Create a calendar for your room, apartment or accommodation and configure:

• Calendar or accommodation name
• Maximum number of guests
• Minimum number of nights
• Optional base price per night
• EUR or USD currency
• Whether the nightly price is displayed in the public calendar
• External iCal or ICS calendar URL
• Required Privacy Policy URL for GDPR and personal-data information
• Website iCal export URL

The Free version supports one main accommodation calendar.

Host Domination Booking Engine PRO enables multiple calendars for different rooms, units or properties.

Minimum stay validation

Set the minimum number of nights required for the accommodation.

If a guest selects a shorter stay, the booking form displays a validation message and prevents the request from being submitted until a valid date range is selected.

Optional nightly price display

The Free version allows you to configure a base price per night and display it on available dates in the public calendar.

Host Domination Booking Engine PRO adds advanced pricing tools for day, month and yearly pricing rules, including different prices for selected dates and periods.

iCal and ICS calendar synchronization

Host Domination Booking Engine supports standard iCal and ICS calendar feeds.

You can:

• Import unavailable dates from an external calendar
• Import reservations from a compatible OTA calendar
• Check the connected external calendar automatically approximately every 30 minutes
• Run an immediate manual import through Refresh Calendars
• Generate a website iCal export URL
• Export confirmed website reservations
• Export imported and blocked periods through the website calendar feed
• Connect the website calendar to other compatible reservation systems

Compatible sources may include:

• Airbnb
• Booking.com
• Vrbo
• Google Calendar
• Apple Calendar
• Tripadvisor
• Other vacation rental platforms
• Property management systems that provide an iCal or ICS URL
• Agoda or Expedia-connected properties when the platform, account or connected property management system provides a compatible iCal feed

Compatibility depends on the availability and format of the calendar feed supplied by each external service.

Automatic calendar synchronization in the Free version

The Free version supports:

• One external iCal or ICS URL
• An immediate calendar import when the external URL is saved
• Automatic checks approximately every 30 minutes through WordPress scheduled tasks
• Manual updates at any time through the Refresh Calendars button
• One website iCal export URL for the accommodation calendar

The automatic interval is approximate. WordPress scheduled tasks are normally triggered when the website receives traffic, and their execution may also depend on the hosting environment and server configuration.

The external OTA or booking platform independently controls how frequently it publishes calendar changes and how often it reads the Website iCal Feed URL generated by the plugin. Some platforms refresh imported calendars automatically at their own intervals, while others may provide or require a manual refresh option.

For this reason, iCal synchronization is not guaranteed to be instantaneous or real time. You can force an immediate import from the connected external feed at any time by clicking the Refresh Calendars button.

Host Domination Booking Engine PRO applies automatic synchronization to up to three external iCal or ICS feeds for each accommodation calendar.

Two-way iCal calendar workflow

A typical synchronization workflow is:

1. Export the iCal or ICS URL from Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo or another compatible platform.
2. Paste the external URL into Host Domination Booking Engine.
3. Save the calendar. The plugin performs the initial import immediately.
4. Copy the Website iCal Feed URL generated by the plugin.
5. Import the generated URL into the external booking platform.
6. Confirm direct booking requests received from your website so that their dates are included in the exported feed.
7. The plugin checks the connected external calendar approximately every 30 minutes. You can also use Refresh Calendars at any time to run an immediate manual import.

The plugin imports and exports availability through standard calendar feeds. It does not use the private APIs of the listed booking platforms.

Reduce the risk of double bookings

Calendar synchronization helps keep availability consistent between your WordPress website and compatible external booking channels.

Imported reservations are displayed as unavailable dates in the booking calendar. Confirmed direct reservations are included in the website iCal feed and can be imported by compatible OTA platforms.

Because iCal updates are periodic rather than instantaneous, no iCal-based system can guarantee real-time synchronization or completely eliminate the possibility of overlapping reservations.

Always verify the calendar refresh settings used by every connected OTA or reservation platform.

Reservation management in WordPress

Manage direct requests from the WordPress dashboard.

The booking area displays information such as:

• Guest name
• Guest email
• Contact phone number
• Check-in date
• Check-out date
• Number of guests
• Selected calendar or accommodation
• Guest notes
• Request status

Administrators can:

• Confirm a request
• Reject a request
• Delete a booking or request
• Review synchronized external reservations
• View a monthly availability overview

Responsive and mobile-friendly booking form

The front-end booking calendar is designed for desktop computers, tablets and smartphones.

Guests can browse availability, choose their dates and submit the direct booking request without leaving the accommodation website.

Built for hosts and property managers

Host Domination Booking Engine can be used by:

• Individual hosts
• Vacation rental owners
• Airbnb hosts
• Property managers
• Bed and breakfast owners
• Apartment managers
• Villa rental businesses
• Small hotels
• Guest houses
• Short-term rental agencies
• WordPress developers
• Web agencies creating accommodation websites

The plugin is not limited to Host Domination customers and can be installed on any compatible WordPress website.

Free version features

The Free version includes:

• One accommodation calendar
• Direct booking request form
• Responsive front-end availability calendar
• Check-in and check-out selection
• Guest number selection
• Guest contact details and notes
• Request confirmation, rejection and deletion
• Minimum-stay validation
• Optional base nightly price displayed in the calendar
• One external iCal or ICS URL
• Immediate import when the external calendar is saved
• Automatic iCal checks approximately every 30 minutes through WordPress scheduled tasks
• Manual iCal updates at any time through Refresh Calendars
• One website iCal export URL
• Import of external reservations and unavailable dates
• Export of confirmed website reservations
• WordPress administration dashboard
• Monthly availability overview
• Gutenberg and Elementor shortcode compatibility
• No time-limited trial
• No mandatory Host Domination cloud subscription

Interested in Host Domination Booking Engine PRO?

Curious about the PRO version?

Take a look at the live demo website and see for yourself what you can build and manage with Host Domination Booking Engine PRO.

• Front-end Demo Website

Host Domination Booking Engine PRO

Host Domination Booking Engine PRO extends the booking system with advanced tools for hosts and property managers who need multiple accommodations, multiple calendar sources, flexible prices and online payments.

PRO features include:

• Multiple accommodation, room or property calendars
• Multiple-room or property selector on the front end
• Up to three external iCal or ICS URLs for each calendar
• Automatic synchronization of up to three external iCal or ICS feeds for each accommodation calendar
• Unified iCal calendar generation
• iCal calendar merger and calendar unifier
• One consolidated website iCal URL generated from multiple connected feeds for the same accommodation calendar
• Advanced day, month and yearly pricing
• Different prices for specific dates and periods
• Advanced date availability controls
• Blocking of selected dates or entire months
• Stripe online payments
• Payment status management
• Expanded reservation management
• Technical support

Multiple external calendars with PRO

The PRO version allows up to three external iCal or ICS feeds to be connected to each accommodation calendar.

For example, the same property calendar can import unavailable dates from:

• Airbnb
• Booking.com
• Vrbo

The plugin combines the imported events in the WordPress availability calendar so that dates already occupied through one connected channel are unavailable on the direct booking website.

Unified iCal calendar and calendar merger

Host Domination Booking Engine PRO can work as an iCal calendar unifier for each accommodation calendar.

Multiple connected iCal or ICS feeds are imported into one property calendar. The plugin then generates one Website iCal Feed URL containing the combined confirmed and unavailable periods.

This unified URL can be imported into another compatible:

• OTA or booking platform
• Property management system
• Calendar application
• Reservation tool
• WordPress website
• Availability system that accepts only one iCal URL

This feature is useful for:

• Combining several booking-channel calendars
• Creating one master availability feed for an accommodation
• Merging unavailable dates from different sources
• Generating one iCal link from multiple connected feeds
• Sharing consolidated availability with another system
• Simplifying multi-channel calendar management

Each accommodation calendar has its own website iCal feed. The unified feed consolidates the sources connected to that specific calendar.

Multiple accommodation calendars

PRO enables multiple calendars for different rooms, apartments, units or properties.

The following shortcode displays all active calendars and allows the guest to switch between them:

[hdbe_booking_calendars]

A specific calendar can still be displayed with its generated shortcode:

[hdbe_booking_calendar id=”123″]

Advanced pricing

Host Domination Booking Engine PRO provides additional pricing controls, including:

• Standard nightly price
• Prices for individual dates
• Daily pricing rules
• Monthly pricing rules
• Yearly or seasonal pricing rules
• Different prices for selected periods

Block dates and months

PRO availability controls can be used to block selected dates or entire months for:

• Maintenance periods
• Owner stays
• Seasonal closures
• Private events
• Temporary unavailability
• Dates managed outside the website

Stripe online payments

Host Domination Booking Engine PRO supports online payments through Stripe.

A Stripe account is required. Stripe may apply its own transaction fees, account requirements and service terms independently of Host Domination Booking Engine.

Why use Host Domination Booking Engine?

Host Domination Booking Engine combines essential accommodation-management tools in one WordPress plugin:

• Direct booking request system
• WordPress reservation dashboard
• Availability calendar
• iCal and ICS calendar synchronization
• External calendar import
• Website calendar export
• Minimum-stay controls
• Optional base nightly price
• Multiple calendars with PRO
• Automatic iCal synchronization approximately every 30 minutes
• Unified iCal feed with PRO
• Advanced pricing with PRO
• Stripe payments with PRO

It is suitable for hosts who want to add direct booking requests to their own website while continuing to use external OTA platforms.

Important information about iCal synchronization

Host Domination Booking Engine connects to external platforms through standard iCal and ICS calendar URLs.

It is not a direct API integration and it is not a complete channel manager.

iCal synchronization normally transfers:

• Reservation dates
• Unavailable periods
• Blocked dates
• Calendar availability

It does not normally synchronize:

• Listing descriptions
• Property images
• Guest conversations
• Platform messages
• OTA prices
• Reviews
• Platform commissions
• Cancellation policies
• Complete guest profiles
• Platform-specific listing settings

The information included in an iCal feed is determined by the service that generates it.

Platform compatibility notice

Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Agoda, Expedia, Tripadvisor, Stripe, Google and Apple are trademarks of their respective owners.

Host Domination Booking Engine is an independent WordPress plugin and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by these companies.

Compatibility depends on the availability and format of the iCal or ICS feed supplied by each external service.