Time to brush up on the fine print in Airbnb’s booking guidelines…
Party-hardy, beware: Airbnb just took another step toward cracking down on all parties and events — and if you break the rules, you might get booted from the travel platform for life. This latest move, announced Tuesday, confirms the rollout of a number of anti-party detection tools, which are aimed at busting parties before they even take place.
Airbnb’s anti-party efforts are two years in the making, now. In 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, the company announced a temporary ban on parties and events as a social distancing measure to keep people safe. Then, two years later, the company confirmed it would be codifying this ban into a permanent measure. In a statement, Airbnb claimed the measure had begun as a “public health measure” but soon morphed into something much bigger than that. “Over time, the party ban… developed into a bedrock community policy to support our Hosts and their neighbors,” the statement read.
Now, Airbnb has announced its latest initiative aimed toward clamping down on rule-breakers: A series of anti-party technological tools that will help the company better assess “high-risk reservations.” Per Airbnb, this new system measures a wide range of factors to determine who exactly counts as “high-risk.” These factors include: The number of positive or negative reviews for the user (or the fact that there are no reviews altogether), whether it’s a weekend or a weekday, how many days are booked, and more.
“The primary objective is attempting to reduce the ability of bad actors to throw unauthorized parties which negatively impact our Hosts, neighbors, and the communities we serve,” the statement read. And apparently, a pilot version of these tools have already been deployed in Australia to great success. “We have seen a 35 percent drop in incidents of unauthorized parties in the areas of Australia where this pilot has been in effect,” the company explained.
Here’s how it works: if you’re deemed a high-risk reservation, then Airbnb will stop the booking from going through at all. Instead, it will offer you private room or hotel room options, where it’s much more likely for a host to be nearby.
But what constitutes a party, anyways, and what happens if you do want to host a little get together?
According to Airbnb’s policy guidelines, there’s a pretty simple rule to follow when it comes to abiding by the party ban. The rule is this: Occupancy at all Airbnb listings is capped at 16 people, even for larger listings that might have previously offered higher occupancy options. The travel company did mention that it’s in early stages of “scoping a potential exception process for specialty and traditional hospitality venues.”
One such example of that “exception process” is Airbnb Categories, a new feature that launched this summer and does offer a totally-above-board way of getting around the 16-person occupancy rule.
Categories offers a number of new housing options, including larger residences that are built for larger groups. With those houses in particular, you can have more than 16 people stay without getting in trouble — but it’s always worth checking the fine print, just in case. And if you’re not sure whether a house you’re looking at will allow more than the standard occupancy limit, it’s worth sending a quick note to the host, just to make sure. After all, no one wants to get booted from Airbnb just a few months out from their next family reunion.
