TEXAS, USA — Looking to book an Airbnb for a party? Airbnb says look elsewhere.
The online rental company introduced Wednesday a new "anti-party technology" pilot program aimed at identifying potentially high-risk reservations and preventing those users from "taking advantage" of the platform.
In June, Airbnb announced its temporary ban on parties would become codified company policy. This new technology is Airbnb's latest steps toward enforcing its new rules.
"It’s integral to our commitment to our Host community — who respect their neighbors and want no part of the property damage and other issues that may come with unauthorized or disruptive parties," Airbnb said in a statement released Wednesday.
Airbnb said its new tools – tested first in Australia and now being used in the US and Canada – "looks at factors like history of positive reviews (or lack of positive reviews), length of time the guest has been on Airbnb, length of the trip, distance to the listing, weekend vs. weekday, among many others."
The company said its goal is to reduce the ability of bad actors to throw unauthorized parties, which negatively impacts its Hosts, neighbors, and the communities it serves.
The new system and rules produced promising results in Australia, according to the company. Airbnb said its pilot in Australia resulted in a 35% drop in incidents of unauthorized parties.
The anti-party technology will prevent a reservation attempt from going through, but those guests who are unable to make entire home bookings due to this system will still be able to book a private room (where the Host is more likely to be physically on site) or a hotel room through Airbnb, the company said in its release.
"We anticipate that this new system will help prevent more bad actors on our platform while having less of a blunt impact on guests who are not trying to throw a party," Airbnb officials said. "While we are consistently willing to make trade-offs in the interests of building trust, our goal is to make these systems as precise and fair as possible to support our Hosts and guests."
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