Estadia reads your channels' calendars over iCal: every time a reservation comes in on Airbnb or Booking.com, it appears in Estadia without you typing it, ready for its parte de viajeros. It only reads your calendars (Estadia imports reservations; it is not a channel manager), it runs by itself in the background, and it is what connects your channels to filing with SES.
iCal is a standard format for sharing calendars. Airbnb, Booking.com and most holiday-rental channels publish each listing's calendar as an iCal link: a URL that, when opened, returns the booked dates. Syncing over iCal simply means reading that link every so often to know which reservations exist. It needs no special integration with the channel: if the channel gives you a calendar link, it can be synced.
You connect each listing's iCal link in Estadia. From then on, every new reservation that appears in that calendar enters Estadia on its own: property and dates. You never re-type a channel reservation. That reservation sits in Estadia waiting for its parte de viajeros, which is the whole point: what matters about the iCal is not the calendar itself, it is that every reservation arrives ready to report to SES inside the deadline.
Worth being clear about. Estadia's iCal sync runs one way: Estadia reads your calendars, it does not write to them. It does not update availability on Airbnb or Booking, it does not close dates, and it does not prevent overlaps between channels. That is what a channel manager is for, and that is a different tool. If you already use one, Estadia sits alongside it with no conflict: you keep managing availability wherever you manage it today, and Estadia makes sure every reservation ends up reported to SES.
Estadia works with any booking channel that gives you an iCal calendar link: Airbnb and Booking.com, a regional channel, another platform. Reservations that do not come from a channel (direct ones) you create by hand in Estadia; the calendar link covers the rest.
The sync does not depend on you having Estadia open. It runs on Estadia's server every fifteen minutes, whether you are looking or not. A reservation that comes in at three in the morning is in Estadia, waiting for its parte de viajeros, without anyone doing anything. If you ever want to update straight away, each calendar link has its own button to sync right now.
Every calendar link you connect shows its status: all clear, out of date, or failing. If a channel changes or removes a link, you see it in Estadia rather than discovering it when a reservation is missing. From there you can sync again, re-check the link, turn it off or remove it. The idea is that a broken link shows up before it turns into a parte de viajeros that never went out.
The parte de viajeros is reported to SES within 24 hours. You can only meet that deadline if the reservation is in your system in time. That is where iCal fits in: it is the route by which every channel reservation enters Estadia as soon as it is confirmed, without going through a spreadsheet or your memory. You import the reservation over iCal, Estadia starts tracking its deadline, and all you have to do is click send. iCal is not an extra: it is the start of the chain that ends at SES.
No. Estadia's iCal sync is read-only: it imports each channel's reservations into Estadia, but it does not write availability back to the channels or sync them with each other. That is a channel manager's job; Estadia sits alongside whichever one you already use.
Any channel that gives you an iCal calendar link: Airbnb, Booking.com, a regional channel or another platform. Direct reservations, which do not come from a channel, are created by hand.
Every fifteen minutes. The sync runs on Estadia's server on a schedule, so you do not need Estadia open. Each calendar link also has a button to sync right away if you need it.
An iCal calendar carries the property and the dates. It does not carry your guests' full personal data: that comes in later, when the guest fills in the check-in form. Some channels do include a small identifying detail in the calendar (Airbnb, for example, includes part of a phone number in the event description); Estadia does not import those into your guest records.
You will see it. Every calendar link shows its status in Estadia: all clear, out of date or failing. If a channel changes or removes the link, Estadia warns you so you can fix it before it turns into an unreported reservation.
For channel reservations it is the convenient route: it saves you typing them in. But it is not required; you can always create a reservation by hand, and that is how direct reservations are recorded.
One 30-minute call and your first property is live. Guests check themselves in from their phone. The booking is filed as soon as it comes in, the guests once they've arrived, both inside the 24 hours. Two weeks free, no invoice until you're up and running.