Room mapping guidelines

Lorena Pamplona

Updated January 12, 2024 15:52

Room mapping is an important step for connecting your distribution channels with Cloudbeds PMS. In this guide we'll go into a bit more of the details involved with distribution channel mapping and how to make sure you're practicing one-to-one mapping.

Note: This is a critical step for ensuring your property is set up correctly. Please pay special attention to this process and follow our recommendations closely.

The mapping process involves three levels:

Cloudbeds PMS (Your PMS)
Cloudbeds channel manager(Your Channel Manager)
Your Distribution Channel (OTA’s like Booking.com)

To make sure that all your rates, availability, and reservations pass accurately between these different levels, it is very important to make sure the settings in each are as consistent as possible.

We highly recommended only mapping one room-type in an OTA to one matching room-type in Cloudbeds PMS. Any other mapping configurations done by a property can unfortunately lead to overbookings, lost reservations, and other miscommunication between the systems.

Basic Room Mapping Guidelines

Within each system (Cloudbeds PMS, Myallocator, OTAS), rooms can either be setup as:

1. Individual Rooms

2. Room Types (Recommended)

Examples of these two different methods are shown below:

Potential Mapping Issues

Problems can arise if there is a mismatch between Individual Rooms and Room Types between Cloudbeds PMS, Cloudbeds channel manager, and/or your distribution channel.

Recommended Room Mapping

Since most distribution channels are separate, the way to connect them is to “map” or “link” your rooms between them.

The ideal solution is to have all rooms setup as Room Types between all systems. This is the simplest configuration, all rooms are mapped perfectly with less confusion and administration. This mapping style allows Cloudbeds PMS to place all guests in the appropriate rooms.

Here is an example of how this might look in the Cloudbeds PMS distribution screen:

Keep in mind, that while the room names in this example are not the same, we do recommend keeping them consistent as well.

Detailed Infographic:

Alternative Mapping: All Individual Rooms

This configuration is possible when only using channels that do not require Room Types, such as Hostelworld, Airbnb, or Flipkey.
Most OTA’s, such as booking.com and Expedia, require that properties use Room Types. If you are using any distribution channel that requires Room Types, you must use room types for all of your Cloudbeds PMS account.

Attempting to map room types to individual rooms can cause overbookings and lost reservations. We strongly recommend only using room types.