Airbnb is making it harder to party in the U.S.A. The company has announced it will begin trialling “anti-party technology” in the U.S. and Canada, which will identify and prevent users from making “high-risk reservations.”
The new anti-party system will consider various factors to determine whether a booking might be a rager in disguise, including the renter’s review history, how old their account is, how long they’ve booked the property for, and the day and dates the user tries to book. The tool will also take into account how far away the user is from the Airbnb rental. A one-night whole house booking in their local neighbourhood for Halloween weekend might be a tad suspicious, for example.
If Airbnb’s anti-party tool does detect someone trying to make a high-risk booking, it will be blocked.
This trial builds on Airbnb’s policy for users under 25, which doesn’t allow them to book entire homes within their local area unless they already have more than three positive reviews (and no negative ones). Similarly to this policy, users flagged by Airbnb’s anti-party system will still be able to book private rooms or hotels as well. It’s just the empty homes full of dangerous possibility that are off the table.
Airbnb’s U.S. and Canadian trial follows testing of similar tools over the past few years in Australia.
“We have seen a 35 percent drop in incidents of unauthorized parties in the areas of Australia where this pilot has been in effect,” Airbnb said in a blog post. “We are now ending the pilot phase in Australia and codifying this product nationwide. We are hoping for similar success as we begin testing this in the US and Canada.”
Airbnb permanently banned all parties earlier this year, enshrining a previously temporary global ban that was installed in 2020 as a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to this, property owners could choose to authorise parties at their own discretion. The company also banned Airbnb listings specifically intended to host parties in 2019, after five people died in a mass shooting at one such house.
