Cracking down on holiday weekend parties with anti-party technology

As travelers get away to enjoy the long holiday weekends this summer, Airbnb is bringing in machine learning technology across the US for Memorial Day and Fourth of July to promote responsible stays. This technology will block certain bookings over these holidays with the aim of reducing the risk of disruptive parties. Last year, these defenses saw approximately 67,500 people across the United States deterred from booking an entire home listing on the platform across both weekends.

Disruptive parties are banned on Airbnb and incidents are rare — in 2023, just 0.035% of reservations globally resulted in a party report to us. We are committed to trying to reduce the risk of isolated issues and helping our hosts to promote positive experiences in their homes and local neighborhoods. 

The system we’ll have in place for this Memorial Day and Fourth of July works by aiming to identify certain attempts to book one-night and two-night stays in entire home listings that could be higher-risk for a disruptive party and prevent those bookings from going through. The system looks at a range of factors, which include the type of listing being booked, the duration of the stay, the distance to the listing from the guest’s location and whether the booking is last minute, among many more signals, to determine whether a booking should be blocked.

“The overwhelming majority of guests and hosts on Airbnb are respectful neighbors and travelers, and disruptive parties are rare. Our aim is to reduce the risk even more, and we’re optimistic these efforts will have a positive impact for hosts and local communities.”

Tara Bunch, Airbnb’s Global Head of Operations

As guests book reservations on Airbnb for the Memorial Day or Fourth of July weekends, the following measures are in effect across the US, including Puerto Rico:

• Restrictions on one-night and two-night bookings –  Heightened restrictions on certain attempts to book entire homes where the reservation is identified as potentially higher-risk
• Commitment to our anti-party attestation – Guests who can book local reservations will be required to attest that they understand Airbnb bans disruptive parties, and that they may be subject to suspension or removal from the platform if they break this rule.

Guests who are prevented from booking an entire home will have the option to book a private room or hotel room on Airbnb instead, where their host is more likely to be onsite.

This heightened holiday system, which has previously been in effect for Halloween and New Year’s Eve in the US, complements our global reservation screening technology, which is active year round and leverages machine learning to try to identify and deter higher-risk bookings in the US and globally. In the year since reservation screening launched in May 2023, over 860,000 guests worldwide have been blocked or redirected from attempting to book on Airbnb by this technology. 

Collectively, these measures support our efforts to enforce our global ban on disruptive parties. Since bringing in this policy in 2020 along with these types of steps to help enforce it, we’ve seen an over 50 percent decrease globally in the rate of party reports to us.

Our further measures and resources to support hosts, guests and local communities and promote responsible travel and hosting include:

• Our Neighborhood Support Line for local communities to report urgent issues directly to us, like a party in progress at a home they believe is listed on Airbnb
• A 24-hour Safety line for hosts and guests to directly reach our Safety team for support
• A free noise sensor for hosts, which can help to get ahead of issues before they start while respecting guest privacy
• Support for law enforcement through a dedicated channel and specialized response team, in the rare event of an issue that potentially involves an Airbnb listing or stay.