After a successful trial run in Australia, Airbnb is set to roll out its new “anti-party technology” in the US and Canada, the company announced on Tuesday.
The new system evaluates certain data that might suggest a property is being booked for a party. These include “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,” according to the company.
“The primary objective is attempting to reduce the ability of bad actors to throw unauthorized parties which negatively impact our hosts, neighbours, and the communities we serve,” Airbnb said in a statement.
The property rental platform pointed out that “a similar variation” of this new anti-party system has been “very effective” in Australia since October 2021. The new initiative has led to a 35% drop in reported incidents of unauthorized parties in the areas where it’s been in effect.
The technology, as described by the company, is “a more robust and sophisticated version of the “under-25” system that has been in effect in North America since 2020, which focuses primarily on guests under the age of 25 without positive reviews who are booking locally.”
The party policy of Airbnb has been changed multiple times. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the company generally allowed hosts to decide whether their properties could be used for parties. It did, however, ban so-called “open-invite” parties that are advertised on social media in 2019.
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, bars and clubs were shut down. This ensured that the platform saw a rise in unwanted parties at its listings leading to a temporary ban that became permanent in June 2022.
Airbnb hopes that this new anti-party technology can “have a positive impact for the safety of our community and our goal to reduce unauthorized parties,” but notes that no system is perfect. The company still recommends that customers report any suspected unauthorized parties to its Neighbourhood Support Line.
