One guest, one inventory, one ledger, one live view for the owner — across every room and outlet.
Why EloPMSWhat Is a Hotel Channel Manager?
A hotel channel manager is software that connects your property management system to online travel agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com, Expedia, and Agoda. It automatically syncs room availability, rates, and restrictions across all distribution channels in real time — so you update once, and every platform reflects the change instantly.
Without a channel manager, you log into each OTA's extranet separately every time you adjust rates, close rooms, or update minimum-stay rules. For a 30-room property listed on 5 OTAs, a single rate adjustment takes 30–40 minutes of manual data entry. With a channel manager, the same update takes 10 seconds.
How it works:
You set rates and availability in your PMS (one time, one place)
The channel manager pushes updates to all connected OTAs simultaneously
When a booking arrives on any channel, it pulls into your PMS automatically
Your PMS adjusts availability across all other channels instantly — preventing overbookings
This is called two-way sync: rates and inventory push out, reservations pull in.
EloPMS's channel manager is built directly into the PMS — no middleware, no third-party bridge, no extra login. Rate changes, room closures, and minimum-stay restrictions propagate to every connected OTA in seconds, not minutes.
Channel Manager vs Booking Engine: What's the Difference?
A channel manager distributes your rooms to third-party OTAs (Booking.com, Expedia). A booking engine lets guests book directly on your own website — commission-free.
Channel Manager
Pushes inventory to OTAs, pulls reservations back. You pay the OTA's commission (15-25%).
Booking Engine
Sits on YOUR website. Guest books directly. You pay 0% commission.
You need both.
The channel manager fills rooms through OTA visibility. The booking engine converts your direct traffic into zero-commission revenue. EloPMS includes both — the channel manager AND the commission-free booking engine — in one platform.
One screen to connect and control every channel.
Connect your own OTA accounts through each platform's official connectivity program, or start syncing today over universal iCal with no partnership required. Every channel is scoped to a specific property.
Booking.com
Connect your account via Booking.com's XML Connectivity Partner Program (CPP).
Expedia
Connect your account via Expedia Quick Connect (EQC).
Agoda
Connect your account via Agoda YCS (Your Connectivity Solution).
Airbnb
Connect your account via the Airbnb Software Partner API for full integration — or use the simpler iCal route immediately for independent hosts.
SiteMinder
A single aggregator connection that reaches 400+ OTAs at once — instead of contracting with each OTA separately.
iCal · Universal Sync
Works today with no partnership required — against any platform that exports or imports iCalendar feeds (Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Agoda and more).
Direct Website
Your own commission-free booking channel, feeding the same reservation ledger.
Other
A generic slot for any additional channel you need to track.
Add a channel in seconds — no generic JSON editing.
Pick the platform, give it a display name, set the commission percentage, and toggle it active to enable sync. The form renders exactly the right credential fields for the channel you chose.
Map your rooms and rates to each channel's side.
Line up every PMS room type and rate plan with the IDs the OTA uses, edit inline row by row, and let unmapped rates fall back to your Best Available Rate automatically.
Pull bookings in, push rates and inventory out.
Fetch new reservations on demand and send current rates and availability back out — with duplicate-safe imports, oversell protection and per-channel commission carried onto every booking.
Pull reservations (inbound)
Fetch new bookings from a channel on demand. The system creates a local reservation for every new booking, maps the OTA room to your room type, resolves the rate plan (mapped or BAR fallback), and finds-or-creates the guest's customer record — then attaches the channel ID, the channel's reservation ID and the channel commission to the reservation.
Duplicate-safe & oversell-proof
Bookings already imported (matched by the channel's reservation ID) are skipped, and every pull returns a clear summary — "X new / Y duplicates / Z failed." Inbound OTA reservations land as confirmed and immediately consume sellable inventory, preventing oversell.
Push rates & inventory (outbound)
Send current rates and availability out to a channel for a chosen date window, with a returned summary of rows pushed. Per-channel commission is recorded on every channel and carried onto imported reservations, so you always know the true net value of OTA business.
Every exchange, logged and searchable.
Every inbound and outbound exchange is written to a per-channel sync log — so you can always see what happened, when, and why.
Stop cross-platform double-bookings — no partnership needed.
The built-in iCalendar engine works in both directions and is production-ready today. Publish one tokenized feed to every OTA, and read their calendars back in as availability holds.
Publish your availability (export)
The PMS publishes a per-property iCal feed at a tokenized URL. Paste this one URL into the "import calendar" field of every OTA — Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Agoda and any other iCal-aware platform — and they poll it on their own schedule, blocking your reserved dates automatically. It publishes the next ~180 days of confirmed, checked-in and checked-out reservations as all-day "Reserved" blocks; no guest personal data ever leaves the feed — only blocked date ranges and an internal reservation reference.
Rotate & standards-compliant
Generate or rotate the feed token with one click — rotating instantly invalidates the old URL — and a copy button makes distribution to each OTA effortless. Output is standards-compliant RFC 5545 iCalendar with correct CRLF line endings, 75-octet line folding and exclusive DTEND semantics that match hotel check-out dates.
Read OTA calendars (import)
Add each OTA's iCal export URL as an inbound feed, tagged with a name and mapped to one of your room types. EloERP fetches those feeds, parses the blocked ranges and creates channel-block reservations so the nights drop out of your sellable inventory. Fetching is robust — connection timeouts, automatic retries and a custom user agent — and a single unreachable feed is logged and skipped without breaking the rest of the sync.
Loop-safe & PII-free
The importer recognizes and ignores blocks that originated from EloERP's own published feed, so re-imported events never create phantom bookings. iCal blocks are treated purely as availability holds — no money or guest PII — keeping the calendar the single source of truth across every platform.
The full distribution capability list.
Every capability of the Channel Manager and iCal sync engine, at a glance.
Distribution connects to everything.
Booking Engine & Website
Your own commission-free direct channel — the Direct Website source, generated from the same room and rate data.
Explore moduleFront Desk & Reservations
Every OTA booking lands in the same tape chart, folio and ledger your reception already runs on.
Explore moduleReports & Analytics
See production by source and the true net value of OTA business once per-channel commission is accounted for.
Explore moduleFrequently Asked Questions
Common questions about hotel channel managers and how EloPMS handles distribution.
What is a channel manager in the hotel industry?+
A channel manager is software that connects a hotel's property management system to multiple online travel agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com, Expedia, and Agoda. It automatically synchronizes room availability, rates, and restrictions across all distribution channels in real time, so one update in your PMS is instantly reflected everywhere. This eliminates the need to log into each OTA separately and dramatically reduces the risk of overbookings.
How does a channel manager prevent overbookings?+
When a booking arrives on any connected channel, the channel manager pulls it into your PMS and immediately reduces available inventory across all other channels. This two-way sync happens in seconds, closing the window where two guests could book the same room on different platforms. EloPMS also marks inbound OTA reservations as confirmed on import, so inventory is consumed the moment the booking is received.
How many OTAs does EloPMS connect to?+
EloPMS connects directly to Booking.com, Expedia, Agoda, and Airbnb through each platform's official connectivity program. Through the SiteMinder aggregator integration, your property can also reach 400+ additional OTAs with a single connection. Any platform that supports iCal can also be synced immediately using EloPMS's universal iCal engine — no partnership required.
Is the EloPMS channel manager included in the subscription?+
Yes, the channel manager is built directly into EloPMS and included in your subscription at no extra cost. There is no separate module to purchase, no third-party middleware, and no additional login — rate changes, room closures, and inventory updates propagate from the same interface you already use for front desk operations.
Can I use EloPMS channel manager without the PMS?+
No, the EloPMS channel manager is natively integrated into the property management system and cannot be used as a standalone product. This tight integration is what enables real-time two-way sync — rates and availability flow directly from your PMS data, and inbound bookings land directly in your reservation ledger without any manual import.
What is two-way sync in a channel manager?+
Two-way sync means data flows in both directions between your PMS and connected OTAs. Outbound, your rates and availability are pushed to every channel when you make a change. Inbound, new reservations from OTAs are pulled into your PMS automatically, updating your inventory across all other channels in real time.
Fill every room, from every channel.
Connect your OTA accounts, sync availability everywhere over iCal, and watch every booking flow into one ledger — see it running on your own property in minutes.