Anti-party crackdown for summer holidays

With summer fast approaching, and 300 million guest arrivals expected on Airbnb this year, we are bringing in measures across the US to help reduce the risk of disruptive and unauthorized parties over both the Memorial Day and Fourth of July holiday weekends.

While these incidents on Airbnb are rare, we are committed to helping our Hosts promote responsible travel in their neighborhoods and working to reduce the risk of disruptive parties, which are banned on our platform and unwelcomed in the communities we serve.

Our anti-party system for the upcoming holiday weekends aims to help do this by taking steps to identify certain potentially higher-risk one-night and two-night booking attempts by guests of entire home listings, and preventing those bookings from being made.

The system looks at factors relating to the guest’s account and their booking attempt that may indicate a higher risk for a disruptive or unauthorized party incident, like whether the guest has a history of positive reviews (or lack of positive reviews), the distance to the listing, whether the booking is last-minute, among other considerations.

For guests looking to book reservations through Airbnb for the Memorial Day or Fourth of July weekends, the following criteria are in effect in the US (including Puerto Rico):

• For one-night and two-night reservations – We are deploying heightened restrictions on reservation attempts, leveraging our anti-party system to block certain entire home bookings that are identified as potentially higher-risk.
• Anti-party attestation – Guests who are able to make local reservations are required to attest that they understand Airbnb bans parties, and that if they break this rule, they may be subject to suspension or removal from the platform.   

This anti-party system was piloted over Memorial Day weekend for the first time last year, and was in effect for the 2022 July 4 weekend—and we saw a decrease in reports of disruptive and unauthorized parties over both holidays. Following that success, we are now codifying this system for Memorial Day weekend.

Since introducing our global party ban in August 2020, we’ve seen a global 55% year-over-two-year decrease in the rate of party reports to us, while globally in 2022, just .039% of reservations resulted in an allegation of a party. These anti-party measures for the holiday weekends are an important part of our ongoing work to enforce our party ban. Similar measures have previously been in effect for Halloween and New Year’s Eve.

We are committed to continuing to work with our community, local law enforcement, and neighbors to try to reduce the risk of unauthorized parties. As part of this effort, we are encouraging neighbors to report any concerns to us via our 24/7 Neighborhood Support Line. This is a dedicated channel for neighbors to report to us in real-time if they spot an urgent issue, like a party in progress, at a home they believe is listed on Airbnb. Reports of parties are handled by our specialized Safety team, who can take swift action in the rare event such an incident occurs. Neighbors in the US can access this hotline at airbnb.com/neighbors.

We are optimistic our anti-party system will have a positive impact for our community and local neighborhoods over the upcoming holiday weekends. This is in addition to other steps we take to help reduce the risk of unauthorized and disruptive parties on Airbnb, including:

• Providing a 24-hour Safety Line for Hosts and guests to directly reach our specialized Safety team for help, such as to report an unauthorized party, during an active stay
• Collaborating to offer a free noise sensor to Hosts in the US
• Sharing tips for Hosts on preventing parties in their listing
• Supporting law enforcement investigations