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Example Vacation Rentals Feed

XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Example of xml feed format to send vacation rental listings to Vast.com. -->
<listings>
    <listing>
        <vacation_rentals_category>Condo</vacation_rentals_category>
        <record_id>12345678</record_id>
        <title>Two Bedroom Condo in Kihei, HI </title>
        <url>http://www.yoursite.com/vacation_rentals/12345678.html</url>
        <address>1234 Main Street</address>
        <city>Kihei</city>
        <state>HI</state>
        <zip>96753</zip>
        <country>United States</country>
        <listing_time>2007-06-26-12:06:00</listing_time>
        <expire_time>2007-07-26-12:06:00</expire_time>
        <description>Beautiful condo with beach access</description>
        <bedrooms>2</bedrooms>
        <bathrooms>1</bathrooms>
        <sleeps>4</sleeps>
        <amenities>Hot Tub, Internet</amenities>
        <activities>Surfing, Swimming, Tennis</activities>
        <image_url>http://www.yoursite.com/vr/12345678.jpg,http://www.yoursite.com/vr/12345678_2.jpg,http://www.yoursite.com/vr/12345678_3.jpg</image_url>
        <rate_period>daily</rate_period>
        <low_rate>2000</low_rate>
        <mid_rate>2500</mid_rate>
        <high_rate>3000</high_rate>
        <currency>USD</currency>
        <not_available_dates>
        <not_available_date>2007-07-06</not_available_date>
        <not_available_date>2007-07-07</not_available_date>
        <not_available_date>2007-07-08</not_available_date>
        </not_available_dates>
    </listing>
</listings>

XML With Rate Ranges

For Vast's Vacation Rentals feed partners who want to benefit from the advantages of Vast-hosted listings, we are enhancing our feed processing to provide more pricing detail.  Starting soon, feed providers will be able to define any number of date ranges for a property, each with its own rates, minimum stays, and mandatory or optional fees.

Use of the new rate range format is incompatible with previous systems for submitting rate information.  You will need to notify Vast.com that you are planning to switch to the new rate submission protocol, and once that switch has been made any records containing old rate definition tags will generate warnings.

To implement rate ranges, add one or more blocks to a property's XML record.  All rate ranges must contain the five main parameters.  Fee blocks are optional, but if they are present each must contain all four parameters that define a fee.

A <rate_range> block looks like this:
 <rate_range>
    <start_date>date</start_date>
    <end_date>date</end_date>
    <stay_unit>[day|week|month]</stay_unit>
    <min_stay>num_units</min_stay>
    <unit_rate>amount</unit_rate>
    <fee>
        <fee_desc>End-User Description</fee_desc>
        <fee_amount>amount</fee_amount>
        <fee_optional>boolean</fee_optional>
        <fee_allocation>[per-unit|per-stay]</fee_allocation>
    </fee>
    ...
 </rate_range>

Dates

Each range must have a <start_date> and an <end_date>. These dates are inclusive. Rate range blocks must appear in the record block in chronological order and they must all appear together. The <start_date> of the first <rate_range> block for a record must be on or before the submission date of the feed. The <start_date> of every additional <rate_range> block must be equal to the <end_date> of the previous block plus one day. The <end_date> for a record's final <rate_range> block must be at least 365 days from the feed submission date. There is no limit on how far into the future rate ranges may be defined. If a record's rate ranges do not conform to these rules, the entire record will be omitted from the processing of the feed and an error notice will be generated for that record.

Stay Unit

In some cases, property owners will only rent out properties in increments of weeks or months. In most cases, the <stay_unit> should be day, which means that people can rent for as many nights as fit their vacation. Other accepted values are week and month. Do not use <stay_unit> to enforce a minimum stay; use the <min_stay> parameter instead.

Min Stay

Many property owners will not rent for less than a certain number of nights. The <min_stay> parameter allows you to express this. Note that the <min_stay> parameter is expressed in terms of the <stay_unit>, so if you set <stay_unit> to week and set <min_stay> to 2, you're saying the property must be rented for a minimum of 2 weeks.

Unit Rate

This defines the price per <stay_unit> for the date range being described. This should be expressed as an integer or a two-decimal-place value and is assumed to be in US Dollars. Do not include currency symbols. In the future, we hope to add support for currencies other than USD, but for now we recommend you convert non-dollar prices to USD using current exchange rates.

Fee Blocks

Each <rate_range> can have any number of fees associated with it.  Each fee has four parameters that define it:
Fee Description:

The text string that will be displayed to the renter and that describes the fee.  Keep this short - it's just the name of the fee, not an explanation.

Fee Amount:

The amount the renter will be charged.  This should be expressed as an integer or a two-decimal-place value and is assumed to be in US Dollars.

Fee Optional:

Some fees (cleaning) may be mandatory.  Others (pool heating) may be opt-in.

Fee Allocation:

If a fee is independent of the length of stay, choose per-stay.  Otherwise, select per-unit and set the <fee_amount> to the amount per <stay_unit> that the user will be charged.

Example
Here is a modified version of the example feed above, which uses rate ranges to define the following rate structure. It assumes that today is January 1, 2008.


line feeds (tsv, csv, bsv)

Use same fields as shown above for xml feed separated by respecting char separator ('\t', ',' or '|').

... title url address ... not_available_date not_available_date ...
... Two Bedroom Condo in Kihei, HI http://www.yoursite.com/vacation_rentals/12345678.html 1234 Main Street ... 2007-07-06 2007-07-07 ...

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