📨 What is a Parser?
Introduction
When hotels receive messages from Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com, those messages arrive as emails — not as structured chat messages. Without a parser, these emails can appear garbled, incomplete, or hard to read in the Unified Inbox. 📥
The Email Parser is a Bookboost feature that automatically extracts and structures the content of incoming OTA emails, so hotel staff can read them clearly and respond efficiently — all without leaving the Unified Inbox.
Main Concept
A parser is a tool that reads the raw content of an incoming email and converts it into a clean, readable message format inside the Unified Inbox.
When an OTA like Booking.com sends a message to your hotel, it arrives as a raw email with complex formatting. The parser processes this email and displays it as a structured message. For full transparency, Bookboost shows both the raw email and the extracted message, so agents always have access to the original content if any parsing issue occurs.
Key terms:
Raw email — the original, unformatted email as received from the OTA.
Parsed message — the cleaned-up, structured version displayed in the Unified Inbox.
Parser domain — the email domain the parser listens to (e.g.,
mchat.booking.comfor Booking.com messages).
Use Cases
📩 Displaying Booking.com guest messages cleanly inside the Unified Inbox
🔍 Giving agents access to both the raw email and parsed content for full context
⚙️ Configuring, enabling, or disabling message parsing per organisation
🛠️ Supporting internal testing via custom domain configuration
Configuration and Setup
Follow these steps to configure the Email Parser in Bookboost:
Navigate to Inbox Settings using the settings icon in the Unified Inbox.
Go to the Organisation Settings section.
Find the Email Parser configuration.
Select Booking.com as the parser type (currently the only available option).
The default domain is pre-set to
mchat.booking.com— this does not need to be changed for most hotels.Toggle the parser on or off as needed (default: enabled). ✅
Click Save to apply your settings.
💡 Tip: Most hotels should leave the domain setting unchanged. Editing the domain is only needed for internal testing or if your organisation uses a custom email forwarding setup.
Advanced Setup
Editing or Deleting the Parser
Once a parser is configured, you can:
Edit the domain — useful if your hotel has a non-standard email forwarding setup or for internal testing purposes.
Disable the parser — if you no longer want messages to be parsed automatically, you can toggle it off without deleting it.
Delete the parser — removes the parser configuration entirely from your organisation settings.
Known Issues or Limitations
Images are not parsed — images included in Booking.com emails cannot currently be extracted or displayed in the Unified Inbox.
Not 100% guaranteed — occasional message content may be missed due to the structure of OTA emails. In such cases, the raw email remains available. Any parsing issues should be flagged with the Bookboost Product team as soon as possible.
Action buttons are not parsed — Booking.com action buttons (e.g., "Accept Request") within emails are not yet supported by the parser.
Booking.com only — currently, the Email Parser supports Booking.com as the only OTA parser type.
Conclusion
The Email Parser ensures that OTA messages, particularly from Booking.com, are displayed clearly and accurately inside the Unified Inbox. By enabling and correctly configuring the parser, hotel teams can reduce miscommunication, improve response times, and always have access to both the original and structured versions of guest messages. 🌟
Support
Please contact us through the 'Talk to Us' option on the left menu in the platform, or through the Bookboost Support email at support@bookboost.io if you have questions or need additional support.