Airbnb announces plan to crack down on New Year’s Eve parties

Travel is coming back as vaccines continue to roll out globally. Health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control, recognize that some short-term rentals may offer a safer travel experience relative to hotels, without the risk of common spaces like lobbies or dining halls. We know that taking full advantage of this opportunity for our Host community means continuing to put public health first while encouraging safe and responsible travel.

To that end, Airbnb introduced a global party ban in 2020. The ban has emerged as a foundational component of our approach to trust and safety, and has been embraced by our Host community. 

As we build upon the party ban and continue to protect our community during this unprecedented time, certain holidays, such as New Years’ Eve, attract higher risks of unauthorized or disruptive parties. That’s why we’re introducing new products and policies to crack down on disruptive NYE parties, helping to protect our Hosts and minimizing neighborhood disruption. The anchor of this plan is a ban on one-night NYE bookings in entire home listings for guests without a history of positive reviews.

Effective today, the following criteria will be in place for guests attempting to book New Year’s Eve reservations in the US (including Puerto Rico), Canada, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain and the UK: 

• For one-night reservations – Guests without a history of positive reviews on Airbnb will be prohibited from making one-night reservations in entire home listings.
• For two-night reservations – As NYE approaches, we will deploy more stringent restrictions on two-night reservations that may pose heightened risk for disruptive parties. For example, we will leverage and amplify our technology that restricts certain local and last-minute bookings by guests without a history of positive reviews on Airbnb.
• Guests who have a history of positive reviews on Airbnb will not be subject to these restrictions.

We first piloted these policies and restrictions last year for NYE 2020. Approximately 243,000 guests globally encountered these defenses during booking attempts ahead of NYE 2020, and we estimate that these efforts achieved our objectives of reducing disruptive parties.

The US (mainland), Canada, Australia, France, Spain and the UK were included in the 2020 pilot. For NYE 2021, we’re adding Puerto Rico, Brazil and New Zealand.

We implemented similar policy and product adaptations in the US and Canada over July 4 and Halloween 2021, with similar success. We’re continuously exploring other opportunities around the globe to introduce this type of initiative, in addition to continued investment in our other robust party prevention systems.