Digital Guidebooks for Hosthub
Rentals and bookings from every channel Hosthub manages, each stay with its own guest guidebook
INTEGRATION
Rentals and bookings from every channel Hosthub manages, each stay with its own guest guidebook
Hosthub is a channel manager first. Hosts use it to list the same rentals on Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Agoda and many smaller sites without double bookings, so every reservation ends up in Hosthub whichever site it was made on. That makes it a convenient single source for BetterSTR: one API key gives us all your rentals and all your bookings, and each stay gets its own guidebook link you can paste into your Hosthub message templates or show on a TV in the rental.
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Hosthub's API is built around calendars and bookings, so the booking side comes across in full while listing content is thin. This is what BetterSTR reads today:
| Data | Synced? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Rentals | Yes | Name, city, postcode, country, map position, maximum guests, currency and timezone. Hosthub's API has no street address field. |
| Bookings | Yes | Stay dates, new bookings, edits and cancellations from every channel Hosthub manages. Holds are kept separate from confirmed stays. |
| Guest name | Yes | Hosthub stores one name field, which BetterSTR splits into first and last name for greetings. |
| Guest phone and email | Yes | Whatever the channel passed to Hosthub. Airbnb and Booking.com often supply a relay email address rather than the guest's own. |
| Party size and channel | Yes | Guest count (or adults plus children) and the channel the booking came from. |
| Door or lock codes | No | Hosthub's API doesn't carry entry codes. Put your access instructions in the guide instead. |
| Check-in and check-out times | Yes | The rental's default times, replaced by a booking's own times when Hosthub has them. |
| Listing photos | Partial | One main image per rental. There is no photo gallery in the API. |
| Description and amenities | No | Not available from Hosthub. Write these once in the BetterSTR guide builder and they apply to every booking. |
Open Settings in app.hosthub.com, scroll to API keys and click Create new API key. A nickname like “BetterSTR” makes it easy to find later.
Under Integrations, choose Hosthub and paste the key. We check it by reading your account and rental list, so a key on an account with no rentals won't connect.
Your rentals load first, then current and upcoming bookings. Switching a rental on in BetterSTR pulls its bookings straight away.
Hosthub doesn't offer webhooks, so it can't tell BetterSTR when something changes. Instead, BetterSTR asks Hosthub every 10 minutes for any booking updated since the last check, with a small overlap so nothing falls between two runs. In practice a new booking has its guidebook within about 10 to 15 minutes. If a guest is arriving sooner than that, click Sync Reservations on the Hosthub page in BetterSTR to fetch it immediately. Rental details refresh once a day, or on demand with Sync Properties.
Once connected, the guide builder gets two extra shortcode menus that fill in per booking when a guest opens their guide:
{{hosthub_rental_name}}, {{hosthub_city}}, {{hosthub_max_guests}}, {{hosthub_currency}}{{hosthub_confirmation_id}}, {{hosthub_adults}}, {{hosthub_children}}, {{hosthub_source}} (the channel), {{hosthub_rental_unit}}{{hosthub_checkin_time}} and {{hosthub_checkout_time}} use the booking's own time when it has one, otherwise the rental default.The same guide also works on an Android TV guest display in the rental, with a WiFi QR code guests can scan.
One API key, every channel's bookings, a guidebook for each stay.
Integration included
Booking check interval
Self-service in Hosthub
No credit card required. SMS and other add-ons are optional.
The guidebook and every integration are on the free plan. Compare Hosthub with all supported PMS integrations.
No plan upgrade or approval is needed. Hosthub lets you create API keys yourself from the Settings page, and the BetterSTR side of the integration is free.
Hosthub doesn't send webhooks, so BetterSTR checks for changes every 10 minutes. Most bookings appear within 10 to 15 minutes. Click Sync Reservations on the Hosthub page in BetterSTR to fetch one immediately.
Channels such as Airbnb and Booking.com often give Hosthub a relay address instead of the guest's real email. Messages sent to that relay address still reach the guest, so the guidebook link is delivered as normal.
Not from Hosthub, because its API doesn't include entry codes. Add your access instructions to the guide in BetterSTR. If you use a different PMS that passes per-booking lock codes, those can be shown automatically.
The key covers every rental the Hosthub account can see. Click Sync Properties to pull the latest list, and if the rental is still missing, check that it is active in Hosthub.