Airbnb Set To Crack Down On Potential New Year's Eve 2021 Party Houses
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – With the holidays looming, Airbnb announced Friday several measures aimed at preventing unauthorized house parties in the Bay Area and across the country over the New Year's Eve holiday weekend.
The San Francisco-based company said in a statement the measures are intended to "crack down on disruptive NYE parties, helping to protect our Hosts and minimizing neighborhood disruption."
As of Friday, users without a history of positive reviews on Airbnb won't be allowed to make one-night reservations in entire home listings for that weekend.
The company said it would also implement "more stringent restrictions" on two-night home reservations that "may pose heightened risk for disruptive parties." One of the approaches would be leveraging its technology restricting certain local and last-minute bookings by users without a history of positive reviews.
The New Year's Eve policy covers users across the U.S., along with Canada, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain and the UK. Users with a history of positive reviews would not face restrictions.
Airbnb said a similar initiative for last New Year's Eve put in place due to the pandemic blocked potential disruptive parties. In the Bay Area, the company said 1,700 people deterred by the company's anti-party defenses at the end of 2020. More recently, restrictions were also put in place over the July 4 holiday and Halloween.
The company has taken other measures to crack down on party houses in the wake of COVID-19 and a mass shooting at an Airbnb rental in Orinda in 2019, including a global ban on parties and events, an occupancy cap on houses and suspending hosts that have violated the company's party and event policy.