Airbnb continues taking action against party houses in New Zealand
As the festive season approaches, Airbnb has suspended more than 300 listings from the platform across New Zealand. The enforcement action was part of a concerted effort to crack down on listings that violate Airbnb policies on parties and events and part of our ongoing commitment to help ensure communities can enjoy the positive benefits of tourism.
This follows Airbnb’s policy change to ban parties at Airbnb listings globally until further notice.
Responsible Kiwi hosts are already taking important steps to prevent unauthorised parties – like establishing clear houses rules, quiet hours, and communicating in advance with their guests and asking appropriate screening questions. These hosts are working to help grow sustainable tourism into the future in their regions for the benefit of everyone in Aotearoa.
The recent enforcement actions have been communicated to impacted hosts, with the suspensions and removals having recently taken immediate effect.
Derek Nolan, Airbnb’s Head of Public Policy for New Zealand and Australia, said the actions taken by Airbnb address the very small minority of hosts who have previously received warnings about hosting responsibilities or have otherwise violated policies.
“Our message to everyone who uses Airbnb could not be clearer; bad behaviour has no place on Airbnb and those who willfully fail to adhere to our policies face removal from our platform,” he said.
“We know that the vast majority of Kiwis are considerate neighbours and respectful travellers who care about the communities in which they live and stay. They’re making a positive contribution to surrounding neighbourhoods, including by supporting jobs and helping to ensure tourism dollars flow into local businesses.
“While negative incidents are extremely rare on Airbnb, our team continues to work diligently to make them even rarer. We remain committed to upholding our community standards, which require everyone on Airbnb to behave in a manner that’s safe and respectful of the local community.
“We continue to work collaboratively with both police and government to help deliver positive outcomes and we remain focused on continually improving our systems and exploring new ways to keep people safe.”
Airbnb is committed to promoting responsible hosting and reducing neighbourhood disturbances, and has previously announced a global ban on ‘party houses’ which cause repeated nuisance.
To help enforce this ban on party houses, Airbnb encourages neighbours to make use of its Neighbourhood Support Page which allows community members to submit concerns or complaints regarding specific listings. Concerns raised by neighbours using this tool led to some of the suspensions announced today.
The Airbnb community continues to support jobs and tourism in Aotearoa. Recent research by Oxford Economics, commissioned by Airbnb, found that Airbnb supported 26,300 Kiwi jobs in 2019 alone.