How to connect WhatsApp to your hotel PMS: Cloudbeds, SiteMinder, Guesty, Mews and more
How to connect WhatsApp to your hotel PMS so guests get live rates, bookings and stay messages in the chat, with what to check for Cloudbeds, SiteMinder, Guesty and Mews.
Your PMS can't send or read WhatsApp messages on its own. To connect the two, you need a WhatsApp Business API number, a messaging tool that uses that number, and an integration between the messaging tool and your PMS or booking engine. The messaging tool reads rates, availability and reservations from the PMS and uses them to answer guests in the chat.
What you can automate depends on the integration, not only on which PMS you run. Some connections only read rates and availability. Others also create bookings in the PMS, look up reservations and send messages after booking and checkout. This guide covers what to check for Cloudbeds, SiteMinder, Little Hotelier, Guesty and Mews, how to set it up and what it costs.
What does a WhatsApp PMS integration actually do?
It lets whoever answers WhatsApp, a person or an AI agent, see the same data your front desk sees. Without it, WhatsApp is one more inbox: a guest asks "Do you have a double for March 12 to 15?", someone opens the PMS, checks the dates, works out the rate and types a reply. At Blue Apple Beach, a hotel in Colombia, staff did exactly that for every date question before they connected their PMS to WhatsApp.
A full integration does four things:
- Read rates and availability. The guest gets real prices for their dates, not a rate copied from last season's PDF.
- Write bookings. The guest books and pays in the chat, and the reservation is created in the PMS with no retyping.
- Look up reservations. Guests confirm their dates, room or arrival details, and sometimes change or cancel.
- Trigger messages from the stay. A new confirmation or a checkout in the PMS sends a WhatsApp message, such as arrival details or a review request.
Everything else, like breakfast hours, parking, pets and directions, comes from the information you give the messaging tool. Questions it can't answer should go to a person with the conversation history attached.
What should you check before you connect WhatsApp to your PMS?
Ask any messaging tool which of these four things it supports for your specific system. The same tool can do more with one PMS than another, because each PMS shares different data through its API.
As an example, this is what Visito, the company that publishes this guide, supports with each system today. "Book and pay in chat" means the reservation is created in the PMS from the conversation.
| System | Live rates and availability | Book and pay in chat | Upsells with payment | WhatsApp after booking and checkout | Confirm reservation details | Modify or cancel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudbeds | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| SiteMinder | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Little Hotelier | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Guesty | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Mews | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mirai | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Wix Hotels | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Where a system can't take the booking in chat, a good setup still quotes live rates and sends the guest a booking engine link for their exact dates, so the booking stays direct. In Visito, live rates and booking links work on Starter; payments, paid upsells and stay messages need Pro.
How does WhatsApp work with Cloudbeds?
Cloudbeds combines a PMS, channel manager and booking engine, so one connection gives a messaging tool rates, availability and reservations. Messaging tools connect through the Cloudbeds Marketplace. Before you install one, check whether it creates bookings in Cloudbeds or only sends a booking link, and whether it can send messages tied to a reservation.
Visito, for example, is listed on the Cloudbeds Marketplace. Its Cloudbeds integration takes bookings with payment in WhatsApp, then sends a confirmation message and a review link after checkout. Changes and cancellations go to the hotel's team.
How does WhatsApp work with SiteMinder and Little Hotelier?
SiteMinder is a hotel commerce platform built around its channel manager and booking engine. Little Hotelier, part of SiteMinder, is its all-in-one system for small properties. A common setup is for the messaging tool to quote live rates on WhatsApp and send a link to the hotel's booking engine, so the guest books directly on the hotel's site.
Visito works this way with both and adds paid upsells in the chat. On SiteMinder it also confirms, changes and cancels reservations. Flow Hotels uses the SiteMinder connection at its three Mexico City properties. SiteMinder has also published its own overview of Visito.
How does WhatsApp work with Guesty?
Guesty is a property management platform for vacation rentals and apartment hotels. Rental guests ask different questions from hotel guests: check-in codes, house rules, parking and cleaning fees. A messaging tool connected to Guesty should quote prices for the exact unit and dates, and the rest of the answers come from your listing information.
Visito is on the Guesty Marketplace. Its Guesty integration quotes live prices, takes bookings with payment and handles changes and cancellations in the chat.
How does WhatsApp work with Mews?
Mews is a cloud hospitality management system with an open API and a marketplace of connected apps. Because Mews exposes reservations as well as rates, a messaging tool can cover most of the stay from WhatsApp.
Visito's Mews integration supports every flow in the table above: bookings with payment, upsells, reservation lookups, changes and cancellations, and WhatsApp messages after confirmation and checkout. Hotels add it from the Mews Marketplace.
What if you use Mirai, Wix Hotels or another system?
Booking engines work too. Mirai is a booking engine, so a messaging tool reads its live rates and sends guests to Mirai's booking engine with their dates to complete the booking, which keeps the reservation on your own site. Mirai wrote about its integration with Visito on its blog. Wix Hotels supports live rates and availability, and HotelRunner is also supported.
For any other system, check whether the messaging tool can call your system's API. In Visito, connectors link the agent to any platform with an API you can reach over HTTPS with its credentials, so it can look up information and take actions during the conversation.
How do you connect WhatsApp to your PMS?
The setup follows the same steps whatever tool you choose. Connecting the PMS takes minutes; teaching the messaging tool about your hotel takes the longest.
- 1. Get a WhatsApp Business API number. Automation needs the API, not the free app. If your team already uses the WhatsApp Business app on the hotel number, WhatsApp coexistence lets you keep that number and the app while you connect the API.
- 2. Connect your PMS or booking engine. Authorize the connection in the messaging tool, then check that room types and rates come through correctly.
- 3. Add your hotel information. Policies, FAQs, check-in times, tone and the cases that should go to a person. Your website is a good starting point.
- 4. Choose how guests book. Booking links or payments in chat; the next section compares them.
- 5. Set handoff rules. Decide who gets group requests, complaints and anything that shouldn't be promised automatically, and on which shifts.
- 6. Turn on stay messages. If your integration supports them, switch on confirmation and post-checkout messages. Messages sent outside WhatsApp's 24-hour reply window use templates Meta has approved, and Meta charges for each one by category and country.
- 7. Test with real dates. Ask for a sold-out night, a long stay and a room type you rarely sell, and check every quote against the PMS before you share the number.
Do you need booking links or payments in chat?
Most independent hotels start with booking links: the guest gets live rates in WhatsApp and a link to the booking engine with their dates filled in. Payments in chat make sense when many guests book from their phones and drop off on a slow booking engine, or when you sell a lot of extras such as transfers, early check-in and tours.
Pricing
Costs have three parts: the messaging tool's plan, Meta's fees for WhatsApp messages, and any fee on payments taken in chat. In Visito, live rates and booking links on WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger are on the Starter plan, from $9 a month with 200 credits. Payments in chat, paid upsells and messages after booking and checkout need Pro, from $399 a month, with a 3% commerce fee plus payment processing on sales made in chat.
What changes when WhatsApp is connected to the PMS?
Each of these is one hotel's result with Visito, measured in its own setup:
- Camino Palmero, a 25-room beach hotel in Colombia on Cloudbeds, was getting 1,700 WhatsApp messages a day in peak season. It now handles a message volume that would otherwise need three more full-time staff, and guests check rates and book inside WhatsApp.
- Flow Hotels, three boutique properties in Mexico City on SiteMinder, handles up to 85% of incoming messages automatically and saves 65+ hours a month.
In both cases, the PMS connection let guests get rates for their dates without waiting for staff.
When is a WhatsApp PMS integration not worth it?
If you get a handful of WhatsApp messages a week, the free WhatsApp Business app and quick replies are enough. The integration pays off when date and rate questions take up real staff time, or when guests ask on WhatsApp and then book through an OTA because nobody answered.
Check channel coverage too. If you also want SMS, email or OTA messages in the same inbox, make sure the tool covers them. Visito, for one, covers WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and website chat, but not SMS, email or OTA inboxes.
FAQ
Do I need the WhatsApp Business API to connect WhatsApp to a PMS?
Yes. The free WhatsApp Business app can't connect to other systems. The API can, and with coexistence you can keep using the app on the same number.
Does the booking go into my PMS?
It depends on the integration. Some create the reservation in the PMS when the guest pays in the chat. Others send the guest to your booking engine, which then passes the booking to the PMS as usual.
Can guests get rates in their own language?
With most AI messaging tools, yes. The tool detects the guest's language and replies in it, using the same live rates.
Does this work on Instagram and Messenger too?
Usually, if the tool supports those channels. The same PMS connection can answer on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and website chat, so hotels can automate Instagram DMs with the same live rates.
Ready to connect WhatsApp to your PMS?
Visito connects to Cloudbeds, SiteMinder, Guesty, Mews and more, and you can test it on your own dates before guests see it.
