Set Up a Hotel List in XML

Page Summary

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• Setting up your hotel list can be done by providing a CSV or XML file, uploading a file from Hotel Center, or hosting a file on a server.

• This guide focuses on setting up a hotel list using XML files hosted on your server for Google to download.

• A hotel list file in XML format contains descriptive data for properties, and a separate file is required for each supported language.

• To create and host an XML hotel list feed on your server, you need to review file requirements, code and validate your files, and then prepare and host the files on your server according to hosting requirements.

• When hosting your XML feed, observe server, directory, file size and naming, compression, and authentication requirements.

To set up your hotel list, you can use one of these methods:

• Provide a CSV or XML file
• Upload a file from Hotel Center
• Host a file on a server

This guide describes how to set up a hotel list using XML files and host the XML feed on your server for Google to download your XML files at the requested schedule. For other methods of setting up a hotel list, see How to set up your hotel inventory .

About hotel lists in XML

A hotel list file contains descriptive data—such as property name, address, GeoCode location—organized by property, for all of the properties in a Hotel Center account.

A very basic example of a hotel list file in the XML file format is shown below. This example shows only one of the several <listing> elements that are specified in the file. Each <listing> element represents a property.

 <?xml  
version="1.0"  
encoding="UTF-8"?>
<listings  
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"  
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://www.gstatic.com/localfeed/local_feed.xsd">  
<language>en</language>  
<listing>  
<!--  
The  
value  
of  
<id>  
must  
be  
unique  
to  
your  
site  
for  
all  
time.  
Do  
NOT  
reuse  
IDs.  
-->  
<id>123abc</id>  
<name>Belgrave  
House</name>  
<address  
format="simple">  
<component  
name="addr1">6  
Acacia  
Ave</component>  
<component  
name="addr2">Floor  
5</component>  
<component  
name="city">London</component>  
<component  
name="province">Greater  
London</component>  
<component  
name="postal_code">SW1W  
9TQ</component>  
</address>  
<country>GB</country>  
<latitude>35.070374</latitude>  
<longitude>-106.213648</longitude>  
<phone  
type="main">123-456-7890</phone>  
<category>hotel</category>  
<!--  
You  
can  
use  
whatever  
property  
type  
categories  
you  
wish  
-->  
</listing>  
...
</listings> 

Create a hotel list in XML

To create a hotel list feed in XML, follow these steps:

1. Review the file requirements .

2. Code your files as described in the Hotel List XML Reference .

3. Validate the files using the hotel list feed schema .

After validating your files, host the feed on your server. Alternatively, you can manually upload your list in Hotel Center .

Host XML feed on your server

With the Hotel List Pull delivery method, you can host a hotel list on your server, and Google will fetch the feed at your preferred frequency. After you've created your hotel list and validated its XML files, do the following:

1. Prepare the files for Google as described in Hosting requirements .

2. Contact your Technical Account Manager (TAM) to set up the following:

   • A download schedule for Google, typically once a week
   • The download URL and authentication requirements

If there are no errors, your hotel list is published and all the properties that are successfully matched in Google Maps are displayed on your Hotel Center account, under the Properties tab.

If there are errors, Google shares the errors with you so that you can fix them and prepare the files for download again.

Hosting requirements

Observe the following requirements when hosting your XML feed:

Server requirement

• The server must be accessible through either HTTP or HTTPS.

Directory requirements

To ensure that Google retrieves a complete snapshot of your data and does not attempt to download incomplete files, follow these guidelines when posting files to your HTTP server:

• Develop and validate your feed's XML files in a directory other than the one Google fetches from, that is: Don't use the download directory.

• After you've successfully validated your feed's XML files, create a symbolic link from the download directory to the newly created feed.

• If you're providing a .zip file, include the XML files at the root level and not within the download directory.

File requirements

• Use plain text files and not a formatted file like a Microsoft Word file.

• Make sure that the uncompressed XML file does not exceed 100 MB. Single or multiple XML files can be compressed into a single .zip file. There is no limit for zipped XML files or .zip files.

• Name the files as follows:

  • For a single XML file, use PARTNER_NAME _local.xml .
  • For single or multiple XML files in a zip, use PARTNER_NAME _local.xml.zip

  The individual XML files in the zip can be named in any manner, however, we recommend appending a language code to each filename.

Authentication requirements

• Optionally, you can secure your files with a username and password using either BASIC or DIGEST authentication.

• NTLM is not supported.