Airbnb’s Work to Protect its Community During the Coronavirus Outbreak

Airbnb is closely monitoring official news and guidance about the novel coronavirus outbreak in order to support our community of hosts, guests and employees in China and around the world — we are prioritizing their safety and wellbeing. 

As governments and organizations work to contain and mitigate the outbreak, travel and other restrictions have been implemented in several places around the world. To help accommodate these disruptions, we have activated our “extenuating circumstances policy” to offer impacted hosts and guests the option of cancelling eligible reservations without charge. This policy is being updated regularly and observes guidance and recommendations from the World Health Organization and governmental and health authorities. Please find more details here.

Airbnb is also working to help keep people informed and to support governments who are responding to this health emergency. Travelers searching severely impacted areas are alerted by travel advisory banners and are guided to seek official information sources, such as the list offered on our Help Page. When requested by authorities, we also share links to official information sources directly with our host community.

The Coronavirus outbreak is causing travel restrictions and other disruptions that have a direct impact on the travel and tourism sector and beyond. Although nobody can know the extent of the impact that the Coronavirus outbreak may have, we believe that history shows that when global disruptions happen, the travel industry has bounced back in the long run. Most importantly, our focus right now is on how we can best support our stakeholders as they are impacted by this global health challenge, including hosts, guests, employees and the communities in which we operate.