Careful booking — Airbnb rolls out anti-party defenses for Memorial Day and July 4 weekends

Technology is designed to some short bookings that could trigger disruptive parties, company says

  • Airbnb hopes to avoid bookings that turn into disruptive parties to book on its platform over the summer.
    Airbnb hopes to avoid bookings that turn into disruptive parties to book on its platform over the summer.

    Airbnb is rolling out anti-party technology, including in Florida, to help reduce the risk of unauthorized and disruptive parties over the Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends, the lodging reservation company said this week.

    "The anti-party defenses active over these summer holidays use machine learning to help prevent potentially higher-risk bookings of entire home listings from being made, and help enforce Airbnb’s global party ban," an Airbnb statement said. "This marks the fourth consecutive year Airbnb has implemented these defenses to block certain bookings over these holidays with the aim of reducing the risk of disruptive parties, which are banned on our platform ... Guests attempting to book will either be blocked from doing so, or redirected to alternative accommodations on the platform."

    The efforts went into effect starting in the summer of 2020 to crack down on gatherings during the height of the COVID-19 epidemic.

    Officials said the technology is designed to help identify and prevent certain attempts to book one-to-two-night stays in entire home listings that could be higher risk for a disruptive party. The system looks at a range of factors – including the type of listing being booked, the duration of the stay, the distance to the listing from the guest’s primary location and whether the booking is last minute – to determine whether a booking should be blocked. Guests who are prevented from booking an entire home will instead have the option to book alternative accommodations on Airbnb.

    Last year, these defenses deterred approximately 51,000 people in the U.S. from booking, including about 7,400 in Florida deterred from booking an entire home listing across both summer holiday weekends – and saw a reduction in the number of parties reported over these summer holidays.

    Airbnb notes these parties remain extremely rare — just 0.08% of reservations in Florida resulted in an allegation of a party. Company officials say they've seen a 46% decrease in the rate of party reports since introducing the global party ban policy in 2020.