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Managing Property Photos in Hospitable

Learn how to manage, organize, and sync your property photos across supported booking channels.

Written by Reynir Óli Smárason

Hospitable allows you to manage photos in one place and push updates to supported platforms.

Which Platforms Does Hospitable Manage Photos For?

Hospitable manages photos for:

  • Airbnb PMS

  • Booking.com

  • Direct (Hospitable Direct)

  • Vrbo Partner

Photo management is not supported for Vrbo Legacy listings. Any photo updates for Vrbo Legacy listings must be made directly in your Vrbo dashboard.

How Photo Management Works

You can view your photos by going to Properties → Select the property → Details → Manage photos.

Step 1: Initial Photo Import & Deduplication

When you connect listings to Hospitable, photos are imported from the booking platform.

Merged listings

If you merge listings from different platforms into the same property, Hospitable creates a combined gallery containing all unique photos from those listings and automatically deduplicates them.

  • Common photos found on multiple platforms appear once and are assigned to all applicable platforms.

  • Platform-specific photos appear in Hospitable, but remain assigned only to the platform they originated from.

For example, if a property has both an Airbnb and Booking.com listing, Hospitable imports all unique photos from both listings. Duplicate photos are merged automatically and assigned to both channels.

Step 2: Recurring Photo Sync

After the initial import, Hospitable continues syncing photo updates from Airbnb, Booking.com, and Vrbo Partner approximately every six hours until Hospitable begins managing photos for that property.

If you never move to step 3, this syncing will continue. You can confirm that you're still in Step 2 if you see this notice after clicking on Manage photos.

The manage photos page with the "manage your photos in Hospitable: Once you make a change here, Hospitable will update your photos across your connected platforms" notice

Exception: Vrbo Legacy photos are imported only when the listing is initially connected. After that, photo updates made in Vrbo Legacy are not synced into Hospitable.

Step 3: Allow Hospitable to Manage Photos

The first time you edit, reorder, replace, add, delete, or otherwise modify photos for a property, you will see a one-time confirmation banner explaining that Hospitable will begin managing photos for that property.

Once you confirm:

  • The banner is permanently dismissed for that property.

  • Hospitable stops importing photo updates from connected listings.

  • Hospitable becomes the source of truth for that property's photos.

  • Future photo updates should be made in Hospitable.

The confirmation banner appears only once per property. After you confirm, it will not appear again.

Step 4: Manage Your Photos in Hospitable

On the Manage photos page, you can manage photos for all of your connected listings. This includes:

  • Replacing any low-quality photos

  • Re-ordering photos

  • Editing photos

  • Deleting photos

Clicking on the pencil, or the photo itself, will allow you to edit an individual photo. From that page, you can:

  • Choose which channels the photo should be displayed

  • Choose which channels (if any) the photo should be your cover photo

  • Adding a photo description (click on Edit per platform if you wish to add a different description per platform; not available on Booking.com)

  • Choose which section of your Direct booking site the photo will appear

  • Delete the photo (you cannot delete a cover photo; you must set a new cover photo first)

Once you've made changes, you must click Apply changes for them to take effect

A full page screenshot of the Edit photo page

Photo upload limit

Hosts can only upload 30 photos at a time to a property on Hospitable.

After uploading a batch of 30 photos, hosts can start again and upload another 30, and so on.

During the creation flow of creating a new Hospitable property, hosts can only upload 30 photos.

Once the property has been created, hosts can go back and add more photos.

Platform-Specific Behaviours

Airbnb

  • Photos are imported when you connect your Airbnb listing.

  • Ongoing photo sync continues until Hospitable becomes the source of truth.

  • After Hospitable becomes the source of truth, photo updates made in Hospitable are pushed to Airbnb.

If you update photos directly in Airbnb after Hospitable becomes the source of truth, those changes will not be imported into Hospitable and will be overwritten during a future sync.

Booking.com

Hospitable pushes photo updates to Booking.com.

Important behaviors:

  • Photos are managed at the listing (Accommodation ID) level rather than the room level.

  • For multi-room listings, updating photos in Hospitable affects all rooms under the same Booking.com listing, meaning that all the photos will upload to that accommodation ID property-level gallery, not the per-unit galleries.

If you need different photos for individual rooms, manage those photos directly in Booking.com.

See more here: Booking.com Listings With Multiple Rooms and Multi-Room Reservations

Direct (Hospitable Direct)

Photos displayed on your Direct booking website come from Hospitable.

Any photo added or edited in Hospitable appears on your Direct site, provided Direct is selected as a publishing channel for that photo.

After deleting a photo in Hospitable, it can take a minute or two for the change to appear on your Direct booking website.

Vrbo Partner Connection

For Vrbo Partner Connection listings, Hospitable can manage and sync photos.

Once Hospitable becomes the source of truth for a property's photos, changes made in Hospitable can be published to connected Vrbo Partner listings.

Vrbo Partner cover photo exception

Hospitable sends your photos to your Vrbo Partner listing in the same order they are in on Hospitable, including the selection of the cover photo or profile picture for the listing.

However, Vrbo is not currently honouring the order and cover photo selection we send them. Instead, Vrbo uses an internal AI to select the cover photo and photo order.

Hosts can reach out to Vrbo directly and opt out of the AI image selection!

📞 Vrbo support phone number: +1 877-239-2592

Vrbo Legacy

Photo management is not supported for Vrbo Legacy listings.

When a Vrbo Legacy listing is connected, Hospitable performs a one-time import of photos and de-duplicates them alongside photos from other connected channels.

After the initial import:

  • Hospitable does not pull photo updates from Vrbo Legacy.

  • Hospitable does not push photo updates to Vrbo Legacy.

  • Any photo changes for Vrbo Legacy listings must be made directly in your Vrbo dashboard.

If your property is connected through Vrbo Legacy, updates made in Hospitable will not update photos on Vrbo.

How to Access Photo Management

To manage photos:

  1. Go to Hospitable → Properties

  2. Select the property you want to edit

  3. Click Details in the left-hand menu

  4. Stay on the Essentials tab

  5. Click Manage photos

Property Details page in Hospitable with the Manage photos button highlighted]

You can filter photos by channel using the dropdown menu and select either All photos or a specific platform.

What You Can Do in Photo Management

Hosts have full control over their property photos in Hospitable.

Reorder Photos

To reorder photos:

  1. Click Re-order photos

  2. Drag and drop photos into your preferred order

  3. Click Save order

To discard your changes, click Cancel.

Replace Photos With Higher-Quality Versions

Photos imported from booking channels may not always be the highest-resolution version available.

To replace photos:

  1. Click Replace photo

  2. Upload your original high-resolution files

You can upload an entire folder at once.

Hospitable will:

  • Match uploaded photos to existing photos

  • Improve image quality where applicable

  • Add any new photos found

Hospitable preserves:

  • Photo order

  • Photo tour setup

  • Existing photo settings

💡 You do not need to replace photos individually.

Add a Photo Description

To add or edit a description:

  1. Click the pencil icon on a photo

  2. Enter text in the Photo description field

  3. Click Apply changes

Descriptions can be published to supported channels.

Booking.com Photo Tags

When Booking.com is selected as a channel for a photo, you can assign Booking.com-specific tags such as:

  • Bedroom

  • Bathroom

  • Bath

  • Shower

  • Swimming pool

These tags help Booking.com categorize and display photos correctly.

To add or edit tags:

  1. Click the pencil icon on a photo

  2. Ensure Booking.com is selected under What channels should this photo display on?

  3. Add or remove tags in the Booking.com tags section

  4. Click Apply changes

Booking.com tags are only saved when Booking.com is selected as a channel for that photo. Removing Booking.com from a photo also removes any associated Booking.com tags.

Choose Which Platforms a Photo Displays On

For a Single Photo

  1. Click the pencil icon on a photo

  2. Under What channels should this photo display on?, select the desired channels

  3. Click Apply changes

For Multiple Photos

  1. Select the photos using the checkboxes

  2. Click Sync to all channels

  3. Confirm your action

💡 Sync to all channels publishes selected photos to all supported channels connected to the property. To exclude a photo from a specific channel, edit that photo individually.

Set a Cover Photo

You can use the same cover photo across all channels or set different cover photos per channel.

To set a cover photo:

  1. Click the pencil icon on a photo

  2. Under What channels should this be the cover photo for?, select the desired channel(s)

  3. Click Apply changes

Add New Photos

To add photos:

  1. Click Add

  2. Drag and drop photos into the upload area

Or:

  • Click to browse your computer and select files

Then:

  1. Select which channels should display the photos

  2. Optionally select which channels should use the photos as cover photos

  3. Save your changes

Delete Photos

Delete a Single Photo

  1. Click the pencil icon on the photo

  2. Click Delete photo

  3. Confirm your action

Delete Multiple Photos

  1. Select the photos using the checkboxes

  2. Click Delete

  3. Confirm your action

Making Photos Uniform Across Platforms

If you want the same photo gallery across all supported channels:

  1. Select all photos

  2. Click Sync to all channels

  3. Confirm your action

If you need different photo galleries on different channels, manage photo assignments individually.

Important Things to Know

  • After your first photo edit in Hospitable, Hospitable becomes the source of truth for that property's photos.

  • Before Hospitable becomes the source of truth, photo updates continue to sync from Airbnb and Booking.com.

  • Vrbo Partner Connection listings support photo management through Hospitable.

  • Vrbo Legacy listings do not support photo syncing or photo management through Hospitable.

  • Booking.com multi-room listings are not supported for photo publishing. Manage those photos directly in Booking.com.

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