Airbnb Announces Plan to Crack Down on New Year's Eve Parties
Don't plan on booking a house for a party on New Year's Eve.
It feels like a holiday doesn't go past without Airbnb announcing what it will do to ensure you aren't using its home-sharing network to throw a party.
That will not change on New Year's Eve. Airbnb has announced measures aimed at cracking down on individuals who rent homes to throw a party to ring in the new year. The company says the preventive measures are based on "a successful trial last year."
The measures will be implemented in 11 countries, including the United States, Canada, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain, the UK, Ireland, Portugal, and the Netherlands.
It will ban guests without a history of positive reviews from one-night bookings on entire homes for the holiday. That ban includes accounts with no previous bookings at all. Additionally, the company will introduce "tighter restrictions" for guests with that same history who try to book a two- or three-night stay, with an emphasis on guests booking locally.
This will work in tandem with the company's previously announced party ban and new technology to enforce the ban. Some of those additional resources include free noise sensors for hosts, its Neighborhood Support Line, and tips for hosts.
Airbnb says the measures, piloted in 2020, have led to a 56% drop in New Year's Eve party incidents. It adds that 340,000 guests around the globe were "blocked or redirected" from attempts to make a New Year's Eve booking last year. With the company sharing that kind of data--or its interpretation of the data--expect these measures to stay in place for future holidays.