AI guest messaging and upsells for Smoobu
TravelPal connects to Smoobu with an API key and secret you generate yourself, then answers each guest in the only thread Smoobu keeps for them: the booking. It reads your apartments, your bookings and their full message history, your rates, and the price elements that say what a night is worth, and it knows a returning guest on sight, because Smoobu keeps one guest record across every booking that person makes. A paid early arrival or late departure is written back onto the booking as a real time.
One connection, running both ways. Every item on it is detailed below.
What TravelPal reads from Smoobu
Smoobu is the system European hosts and small property management companies run, with apartments listed on Airbnb and Booking.com beside German-language regional portals and a stack of iCal feeds.
Apartments become properties
Smoobu holds an apartment's name in one place and its detail in another, and TravelPal reads both, so the address, the apartment's own time zone, the amenity list, the property type, and the currency all arrive together. The bed counts come across the way Smoobu breaks them down, double, single, sofa, queen, king and child beds kept apart, so a party of six gets a real answer about how they will sleep rather than a bed total. Smoobu publishes no photo resource, so pictures are the ones you put in your guidebook.
Bookings, and nothing that is only a calendar block
Smoobu stores blocks as bookings, on channels its own list names Blocked channel. TravelPal recognizes them and skips them, so no guest link is ever minted for an owner stay or a maintenance hold. What is left is real: Smoobu has no inquiry state and no pending state, so every stay the concierge greets is a guest who is actually coming.
The thread is the booking
Smoobu keeps messages on the booking rather than in a separate inbox, so one stay is one conversation and there is nothing to match up. The history comes in oldest first, and the booking carries the channel's own reference code, so the concierge can quote a guest the Airbnb or Booking.com number they can actually see instead of a Smoobu id.
One guest record across stays
A Smoobu guest keeps the same record from one booking to the next, so a second visit arrives already linked to the first. That is what the returning-guest profile joins on: preferences, past questions, and what they bought last time are there before they write.
What a night is worth, split into its parts
The total on a Smoobu booking is a single number with no currency on it, so TravelPal reads the price elements instead and takes the accommodation line with its own currency code. Rates and minimum stays come from your Smoobu calendar per apartment, priced in that apartment's currency, which is what keeps an upsell quote in euros when the unit is in Berlin.
What TravelPal writes back
Every message goes out through Smoobu, never around it, so your own inbox shows exactly what each guest was told.
Replies on the booking's own thread
TravelPal answers through Smoobu, on the booking the guest wrote from, so that booking's own message history is the whole record and there is no second inbox to check. Direct bookings and the ones that came through your own Smoobu booking page are answered at the address Smoobu holds for that guest.
Paid time changes, on the booking
A late departure or early arrival the guest paid for is written to the arrival and departure times on the Smoobu booking, so your cleaners read the real time off the booking they already work from. See how upsells work for what gets offered and when.
One field at a time
Smoobu's booking update takes only the field that changed, so TravelPal sends the time and nothing else. A price, a note, or a guest detail your staff edited five minutes ago is left exactly as they left it.
Connected in four steps
The credentials are yours to create inside Smoobu. TravelPal does the rest itself.
Generate the key and secret in Smoobu
Settings, then Advanced, then API Keys. The key starts with a prefix such as usr_live_. The secret appears once, when you press Generate Secret, so copy it then: Smoobu cannot show it again, though you can generate a fresh one whenever you want. Both halves are yours to make, with nobody at Smoobu to ask first.
Paste both into TravelPal
Both are required, and TravelPal checks them against your Smoobu account the moment you save. Every request is signed with the pair from then on, which is the only method Smoobu accepts after September 25, 2026, so that date passes without anything to do. The connection is covered by the flat price, see what it costs.
One address, every Smoobu event
Smoobu sends the account's whole event stream to each address registered on it, with no per-event choices to make, so a single registration covers new bookings, changes, cancellations, and new guest messages. TravelPal registers its own address and removes it again if you disconnect.
Apartments import, then the channel check
Your apartments become properties and your bookings backfill with their message history. If your Smoobu account takes Airbnb or Booking.com bookings, somebody on your side sends one real message from it first and notes where the guest received it, and TravelPal answers those guests from then on.
The dashboard shows the connection the whole way: connected, last sync, and any error in plain words. The rest of going live is covered in what onboarding involves.
What the Smoobu connection will not do
Every property management system draws its own lines, and the ones Smoobu draws are worth knowing before you switch anything on. TravelPal works inside them rather than around them.
Airbnb and Booking.com guests wait for one check
Smoobu's send call carries a message body and nothing that names the channel it goes out on, and its published reference does not say where a message to an Airbnb or Booking.com guest surfaces: the channel's own thread, the Smoobu guest app, or email. Sending an Airbnb guest an off-platform message can get a host delisted, so TravelPal does not guess. Direct bookings and bookings from your own Smoobu page are answered from the first day. Channel guests are answered once somebody has sent one real message on your account and written down where it arrived, and until that is done TravelPal keeps quiet with them rather than quoting an upsell it cannot deliver.
No team-only note inside Smoobu
Smoobu's booking notes are single text boxes that a save overwrites whole, and its host message is not documented as hidden from the guest, so there is no line inside Smoobu that only your team can read. TravelPal leaves those boxes alone and never settles for a guest-visible message instead. A question it holds for a person, and the record of a sale, land in your team's channel and inbox, outside Smoobu entirely.
Extra nights cannot be written onto a Smoobu booking
Smoobu's booking update accepts an arrival time and a departure time and no dates at all, so an added night has nowhere to land on the booking. TravelPal therefore sells early arrival and late departure here, and passes an extra-night request to your team with the nights already checked against your Smoobu rates, rather than selling something it cannot record.
The message history carries no clock and no author
A Smoobu message arrives with its text and its direction, inbox or outbox, and no send time, and nothing in it says who on your side wrote an outbox line: your own reply and a Smoobu automated template read the same. TravelPal reads a booking's thread in the order Smoobu numbered it rather than by the clock. Smoobu announces a guest's message and says nothing about yours, so the concierge steps back on your written rules and your quiet hours instead of on a colleague starting to type.
Where the AI is not sure, it stops and asks your team rather than guessing. That is the same on every system: see the guardrails.
Smoobu integration FAQ
Where do I get the Smoobu API key and secret?
In your own Smoobu account, under Settings, then Advanced, then API Keys. The key starts with a prefix such as usr_live_, and the secret appears once, when you press Generate Secret. Copy it then, because Smoobu cannot show it again. If you miss it, generate a fresh secret and paste that instead. Nobody at Smoobu has to approve anything first.
Can TravelPal answer my Airbnb and Booking.com guests on Smoobu?
Yes, after one check on your account. Smoobu's send call has no channel selector, and its reference does not say whether a message to a channel guest lands in the channel's own thread or in email, so one real message goes out on your account first and where the guest received it is recorded. Direct bookings and bookings from your own Smoobu page are answered from the first day.
What happens to my Smoobu calendar blocks?
Nothing. Smoobu records a block as a booking on a channel named Blocked channel, and TravelPal reads that and skips it. No guest link is created, no welcome message goes out, and an owner stay or a maintenance hold never appears as a guest waiting for an answer.
How does a paid late checkout reach my Smoobu booking?
As a departure time on the Smoobu booking, which is where your cleaning schedule already looks, so nothing has to be copied anywhere. TravelPal sends that one field and leaves the rest of the booking untouched. Smoobu's update takes no dates, so an added night stays with your team.
Not the system you run?
TravelPal connects to 33 property management systems. These are the ones nearest Smoobu in how widely they are used.
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