Airbnb steps up crackdown on Halloween party with new anti-party defenses

Thinking of renting an Airbnb for your wild Halloween weekend? Think again.

Airbnb is rolling out policies and platform defenses that will further reduce parties over the holiday weekend.

Last year, the company’s crackdown on Halloween parties led to a 37% drop in incidents, such as unauthorized parties, according to an Airbnb press release. In Nevada, there has been a 77% year-over-year reduction in party reporting since the company’s party ban was enacted in August 2020, according to a news release.

This year’s crackdown follows Airbnb’s decision to codify his party ban in June, which banned gatherings by open invitation due to health concerns related to the pandemic. The ban was made permanent to avoid “chronic ‘party houses’ that have turned into neighborhood nuisances,” according to Airbnb’s website.

In addition, the short-term rental company has introduced anti-party technology this would help identify high-risk bookings and examine tenant review history, how long a guest has used Airbnb, whether the rental was on a weekend or weekday, and other factors.

This year, some additional measures that are being adopted for holiday prevention include:

• Prohibit guests without a history of positive Airbnb reviews from making one-night reservations for entire homes.
• Prohibit customers from trying to book an entire house for two nights without a history of positive reviews, in certain locations and with last minute bookings. Customers who meet these criteria will be redirected to listings that are not full or blocked home listings.
• Require all guests attempting to make local reservations over the holiday weekend to ensure they understand the party ban and will be subject to legal action by Airbnb if the rule is broken.

The new Halloween measures will work in addition to Airbnb’s existing anti-party technology, the company said.

“We understand that a majority of our guests respect their host’s homes and the neighborhood around them,” the company said. “We continue to believe that these defenses help make travel safer, combat disruptive behavior and parties while allowing guests, hosts and neighbors to enjoy Halloween weekend safely.”