Free guide
One platform accepts them, the other does not. What Booking.com asks for, what Airbnb offers and where a 360° tour pays off.
In short. Booking.com accepts 360° photos: the property gallery has a dedicated section, and images must have a 2:1 ratio and be at least 1280 × 900 pixels. Airbnb does not: the photo tour is made of standard photos, and the 3D scans Airbnb sometimes offers are only used to verify accessibility. A full 360° tour works best on your own website, where you decide what to show.
| Booking.com | Airbnb | |
|---|---|---|
| 360° photos in the gallery | yes, in a dedicated section | no |
| Requirements | 2:1 ratio, at least 1280 × 900 pixels | not applicable |
| Video in the gallery | no, photos only | not mentioned |
| 3D scans | not offered | only through the Matterport program, by invitation, to verify accessibility |
Sources: Booking.com Partner Hub ('Uploading, deleting, reordering, and editing photos' and 'Understanding photo requirements for your property') and Airbnb Help Center ('Setting up a photo tour for your home listing' and 'Matterport program').
Wondering whether your home suits a 360° tour?
According to the Booking.com Partner Hub, you add 360° photos in the Extranet: Property → Photos, then in the Main gallery find the section Introducing 360° Photos on your Property Page and click Add photos.
A 360° image is a complete panoramic photo unrolled into a rectangle twice as wide as it is tall, which is why Booking.com asks for a 2:1 ratio. A standard panorama taken on a phone, which covers only part of the room, does not have these proportions and is not a 360° photo.
The same rules apply as for other photos: Booking.com asks for realistic images of the property, without distortion or heavy editing, and its content guidelines do not allow images that misrepresent the stay. A 360° sphere shows the whole room, corners included: cables, clutter and damaged walls stand out more than in a standard photo.
Before going 360°, your standard photos need to hold up. We will tell you, free of charge.
Airbnb's photo tour organises photos by room: Airbnb sorts them into rooms automatically, and the host can move, add or remove them. The Airbnb Help Center offers no option for 360° photos or virtual tours in the listing.
The only 3D on offer is the Matterport program: Airbnb offers it by invitation, free and for a limited time, to listings that may qualify for its Adapted category of accessible homes. The scan is used to measure doorways and thresholds; the host gets images of the accessibility features and a 2D floor plan to add to the gallery.
On Airbnb, then, the feeling of being inside the home comes from standard photos: one for every room, shot in full and in the order a guest would walk through them. How to choose the first one is explained in The cover photo on Airbnb.
A full 360° tour, the kind where you move from one room to the next, does not fit in Airbnb's gallery or in Booking.com's, which accepts single photos. It works best where you are in control:
For a one-bedroom city flat, on the other hand, ten good photos almost always do more than a 360° tour. The sizes for standard photos are in Photo size and format for Airbnb and Booking.com.
In our packages the video tour is also available as an interactive 360° version: instead of a video, the home can be explored room by room in the browser.
Tell us about your home and we will tell you whether a video tour or the 360° version makes more sense.
Frequently asked questions
No. Airbnb's photo tour accepts standard photos, organised by room. The only 3D content is the Matterport scan for accessibility, offered by invitation only.
Yes. In the Extranet, under Property and then Photos, the main gallery has a section for 360° photos. Images must have a 2:1 ratio and be at least 1280 × 900 pixels.
A panorama covers part of the room, across its width. A 360° photo covers the whole sphere around the camera, ceiling and floor included, and is twice as wide as it is tall.
No. The Booking.com Partner Hub states that you cannot upload videos to the property gallery, only photos, through the Extranet or the Pulse app.
On Airbnb you cannot upload one, so no. Booking.com presents 360° photos as a way to show the property, without linking them to ranking. A tour helps persuade guests who are already looking at the home; in search results, the cover photo is what counts.
The first step
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