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How channel connections work

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What a connection is, what syncs in each direction, and the four states a listing passes through.

Santara AI is your channel manager: it connects the channels you sell on. Once a listing is live, four things flow:

DirectionWhat moves
Out to the channelAvailability, nightly rates, minimum stay, restrictions
In from the channelReservations, cancellations, guests, messages, reviews
In, once, at importListing details — title, photos, amenities, capacity, existing rates
Out, on demandYour reply to a guest message; your reply to a review

Anything else stays where it is. Santara AI does not edit your listing’s description, and it never changes a price on a channel that you did not either type or ask a pricing rule to work out.

What moves between Santara AI and a channel Santara AI The channel Airbnb, Booking.com Availability and rates min stay and restrictions too — as you save them Bookings and cancellations plus guests, messages and reviews Listing details once, at import: title, photos, capacity, rates Your replies to a guest message, or to a review — when you send them Nothing else moves. Your listing description is never edited from here.
Availability and rates go out to the channel; bookings, guests, messages and reviews come back. Listing details arrive once, at import.

Supported channels

Section titled “Supported channels”

Santara AI connects to 54 sales channels, plus your own booking site. Airbnb and Booking.com have a guided connect flow; every other channel connects from the channel list in Settings.

ChannelHow it connects
AirbnbYou authorise Santara AI on Airbnb, then pick listings — Connect Airbnb
Booking.comYou add a connectivity provider in the extranet, then enter your Hotel ID — Connect Booking.com
Every other channel — Agoda, Expedia, Trip.com, Vrbo, Traveloka, Tiket.com, Hostelworld and moreSettings → Channels → Add a channel, pick it from the list, then connect and map it in a three-step setup — Connect another channel
Your booking siteBuilt into Santara AI, no connection needed — Your direct booking site
PriceLabsRead-only detection: if you run PriceLabs, Santara AI’s own pricing engine stands aside

Every channel gets the same calendar, rates and restrictions, and brings bookings, cancellations and guests in. Two things differ by channel:

  • Guest messages. Replies go out on Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia only — those are the channels that pass guest messaging through a connection. On any other channel, answer the guest in that channel’s own inbox. Vrbo guest messages are not supported.
  • Reviews arrive, and can be answered, where the channel passes them on.

Settings → Channels before anything is connected. Each channel is linked on its own and carries its own status and last-sync time.
Settings → Channels before anything is connected. Each channel is linked on its own and carries its own status and last-sync time.

Connections and accounts

Section titled “Connections and accounts”

A connection is one channel account. You can connect:

  • several Airbnb accounts to one workspace — a common case for managers who hold listings under different host logins;
  • several Booking.com properties, one per Hotel ID;
  • any other channel from the list, one property at a time — connect the same channel again for another property.

Each connection has its own page under Settings → Channels showing its listings, when it last synced, and every action available for it. Nothing in Santara AI assumes there is only one of anything.

The four states of a listing

Section titled “The four states of a listing”

This vocabulary is used identically on every screen:

The four states of a listing Not connected No channel account is linked automatic Linked — not mapped yet We can see the listing. Nothing syncs. automatic Mapped — awaiting activation It points at a room. Still nothing syncs. You press Go live Nothing crosses this line on its own Live Availability and rates out, bookings and messages in
The four states a listing passes through, with Go live as the gate before the last one.

  1. Not connected — no channel account is linked.
  2. Linked — not mapped yet — Santara AI can see the listing on the channel, but it does not point at any room here. Nothing syncs.
  3. Mapped — awaiting activation — it points at a room. Still nothing syncs; the channel has not handed over.
  4. Live — availability and rates go out, bookings and messages come in.

The gap between 3 and 4 is deliberate and it is yours to close. See Going live.

Sync timing

Section titled “Sync timing”
  • New bookings, cancellations and messages arrive within seconds to a minute, pushed by the channel.
  • Availability and rate changes you make are pushed as you save them, usually visible on the channel within a minute.
  • A full re-read of a connection happens when you press Refresh on it, and on a schedule.

If a channel has an outage, changes queue and drain when it recovers. You do not need to repeat them.

What disconnecting does

Section titled “What disconnecting does”

Disconnecting a connection stops syncing and removes the reservations, guests, messages and reviews that came from it. Nothing on the channel is affected — your listing, its calendar and its bookings are untouched there. You can reconnect the same account later and import again.

Removing a single listing (Remove from Santara AI) does the same for that one room.

For AI tools: this page as markdown · llms.txt · llms-full.txt