I see on the search page (when you search "Google Hotels" on the forums) that Chris Hynes has replied to this topic... but when I click on the comment it isn't showing up on this thread. @Chris Hynes can you share your response again please?
Chris Hynes in response to: Google Hotels Integration1 month ago
Google Hotels and GVR are basically the same thing -- GVR is just in VR mode, but under the covers it's Hotels and they both use the same XML feeds we already do. So supporting hotels is not a huge technical lift like creating a new channel, we'd just need to create and manage a separate feed.
That said, VR's are not allowed on Google Hotels. Hotels is only for properties that have a front desk and...
It’s true. OwnerRez is brilliantly rich with features and automations that the smaller hotel PMS’ are just truly lacking in. If OwnerRez could even just add connections to Google Meta Search (Google Hotels) and Expedia, even without room types, it would be life changing for boutique hoteliers. We would never have to leave OwnerRez.
Thank you for your renewed interest in this request, everyone!
We're discussing internally and will provide updates here as they become available. The year is young, and much of our future roadmap planning is still to be determined. You all make strong arguments here, and we will be exploring what options are available to us to see if we can hit the ground running on this any time soon.
THANK YOU!
Lodgify has an Expedia integration which pushes to Google Hotels. I don't love Expedia (or paying commission) so I'd prefer a direct integration to Google Hotels.
Glad this is being considered for 2026!!
Can you explain what you mean about not being on Expedia? Via Vrbo, my listings are on Expedia. Is there something I'm missing about this?
It's nuanced...
VRBO is for vacation rentals. Each VRBO listing can be pushed to Expedia as a stand alone property. This is fine for vacation rentals but not hotels.
If you list your hotel units on Expedia directly, your rooms are all nested under 1 "property". From there, Expedia pushes to all their brands like hotels.com etc & to Google Hotels.
As far as I can tell, VRBO listings pushed to Expedia are NOT listed on Google Hotels and Hotels.com for example... Expedia owns like 30+ other sites where we used to get bookings.
Since I switched to listing on VRBO, I no longer get listing visibility in these other Expedia owned sites & each of my hotel rooms are treated like individual properties, rather than rooms at the same property.
VRBO/Expedia has very little documentation about this and offers limited support so it is difficult to understand the full scope of differences...
Thanks for that explanation!
Kelly how are you doing with it now and who did you end up choosing?
—Shelley @TheVictorianInnBB
Hi Bri, checking back in to see if there are any updates on this. I'm considering moving to another PMS and this is the primary reason but that will take time and effort so if this is something OwnerRez really has on their radar I would wait.
Thanks,
Lindy
There are OwnerRez users that have B & B’s and boutique hotels that have front desks and are in need of hotel.com
Hi Bri, checking back in to see if there are any updates on this. I'm considering moving to another PMS and this is the primary reason but that will take time and effort so if this is something OwnerRez really has on their radar I would wait.
Thanks,
Lindy
Hey, Lindy!
Our devs are in the research phase for Google Hotels integration at this time. While many things are similar between Hotels and Vacation Rentals, there are some significant differences with the Hotels aspect that we have to understand fully before we can start developing this integration.
It is absolutely on our radar, and I can see some recent back and forth internally on the research side. How long it could take to get from the research phase into development, and then into production, I simply cannot say.
I do not intend to make any false promises here. We are very interested in a Google Hotels integration, but there's still a good bit of work to be done to get there. That said, there's no ETA I can provide.
We will post updates in this thread as they become available.
Hi Bri, why only on the radar and in the research phase after over two years?
I will likely be leaving in October if Google hotels isn’t released by then. Question: can my account stay inactive so when you do get it I can come back?
Hi Bri, why only on the radar and in the research phase after over two years?
Hey Scott,
As I mentioned above, Google Hotels has some meaningful technical differences from Vacation Rentals that require us to fully understand the scope before development can begin. On top of that, we have to weigh it against the overall demand we're seeing across all feature requests, and right now there are items with higher overall demand from our user base.
We're invested in making this happen and will post updates here as they're available.
I will likely be leaving in October if Google hotels isn’t released by then. Question: can my account stay inactive so when you do get it I can come back?
You cannot have an OwnerRez account that does not incur monthly fees. However, should you choose to do so, you can close your account if / when needed. We can re-open the account if you decide to come back at a later date. Keep in mind though that there is manual work that will need to be done by you upon reopening.
When an OwnerRez account is closed, many things are turned off including, but not limited to:
- Channel Integration connections
- Calendar import/exports
- Scheduled credit card payments
- Messaging automation (eg. triggers)
- Hosted websites, SSL certificates
- Widget integration
We have to make sure that all of these things, and other background processes, are no longer running, so a number of things are checked and flagged when an account is closed. The closing process is invasive on an account and therefore not magically reversed.
Because of this, it may be financially worthwhile to keep your account open instead of closing and reactivating the account later, if that is what you're planning on doing.
Adding on to what Bri said...
We have "done research" on Google Hotels twice in the past, once a long time ago and then again right after we released GVR. There are many types of research - product market fit, partnership requirements, etc. The kind of research we're doing now is much deeper and entirely within the engineering team. The engineering team is actively spec'ing how it deviates from GVR and writing coding tasks. In the past week, we have greenlit it, and it's been assigned to an engineer to move forward. As for when it will be released or what obstacles we hit from this point forward, we can't say, which is why Bri said we can't give an ETA.
Re: why hasn't this been done sooner, we agree that there is a real need for Google Hotels within the STR world (because of small boutique-style BnBs, inns, and motels that are caught between a rock and a hard place), but we estimate that only about 5% of our customer base will actually be able to use it. That 5% isn't even everyone who would use it, necessarily, just the group of users who would be eligible. Compare that to Marriott, which has a 20-30%+ eligibility fit.
Unless something completely unforeseen happens, this should be out long before October. Not guaranteeing that, just saying that based on the R&D and engineering tasks I see at the moment, it should not take that long.
Thanks for the update Paul! Hopefully this is already accounted for when weighing the prioritization of a feature request/integration but even if it's 5% of your customer base, most feature requests aren't ones that people would leave OwnerRez over for lacking but this one has a huge financial impact. Also, while it's 5% of your base now that would be eligible, I bet if you had this feature you would have a lot more customers like us. I only went with OwnerRez because renting the full Inn rental used to be a bigger chunk of our business but I wouldn't have considered it if that weren't the case (and it's not the case now but at this point I'm so tied into OwnerRez). I'm in a local Inn group and while they've all heard good things about OwnerRez they also said Google Hotels is a huge income generator and wouldn't consider OwnerRez due to that. So hopefully that is considered and gives the project more momentum but I'm glad to hear it's been greenlit!
If you come across any ways for us to still be able to use Google Hotels in the interim I'm all ears but the only way I understand how basically involves getting a whole new PMS/leaving OwnerRez. I know Bri posted in a comment earlier about leaving an account open waiting for the feature so as not to do the setup work again if we hope to come back, if we disable all of our room types but one will most of the work we've done stay in place since our account is still open?
Thanks again!
Lindy
Also, while it's 5% of your base now that would be eligible, I bet if you had this feature you would have a lot more customers like us. I only went with OwnerRez because renting the full Inn rental used to be a bigger chunk of our business but I wouldn't have considered it if that weren't the case
Very true!
if we disable all of our room types but one will most of the work we've done stay in place since our account is still open?
Yes, that will work. There would probably be some minimal cleaning up when you come back because the listing content might be a bit stale, but yes that will work!
This is fantastic news Paul! Does this mean that you may consider Expedia too?
We had to move to another PMS for a historic boutique hotel that we bought last year (and are still trying to run our other, smaller, inns on OwnerRez). This might allow us to move all of our hotel properties to OwnerRez if you add Google Hotels and Expedia. The last thing would be the ability to connect with a 3rd party channel manager that allows connections to things like Google Meta and 3rd party hotel software like Stash Rewards, etc.
All I was meaning to say was Woohoo! Very excited. Let me know if you want a tester.
