Photo: Michael Discenza, Unsplash
Airbnb is making it harder for people to throw destructive parties this New Year's Eve.
Rental platform Airbnb has implemented new anti-party rules will make it harder for people to rent Cincinnati homes through its app to hold New Year's Eve parties.
Guests without a history of positive reviews on its platform won't be able to make one-night reservations for entire houses. What's more, the company is flagging certain two-night and three-night rentals made by guests without a positive review record — among those, rentals made at the last minute.
"This ongoing crackdown has been well-received by our Host community. Based upon their feedback, we’re announcing today that we will beef up this anti-party initiative even further and expand it to include three-night reservations as well," says Liz DeBold Fusco, of Public Policy & Communications at Airbnb, in an emailed statement. "We are publicly communicating this initiative to help support our Cincinnati Hosts and send a message to would-be partiers that we won’t tolerate that type of behavior on our platform."
Those with histories of positive reviews won't be affected by the new safeguards.
Airbnb piloted a similar initiative last New Year's Eve. They say they blocked 243,000 guests across the globe from booking New Year's Eve events in 2020 and that "these efforts achieved our objectives of reducing disruptive parties."
In August of 2020, the online lodging marketplace instituted a ban on all parties and events at Airbnb listings — across the globe — and capped max occupancy for all rentals at 16. The rule was partially aimed at helping curb the number of large gatherings happening during the pandemic, said the company.
Also in August, Airbnb announced that it would be pursuing legal action against a Cincinnati guest who booked a property and held an unauthorized party that ended in gun violence. Then, in November, the company suspended or removed multiple listings in Cincinnati (23 listings), Cleveland and Columbus for violating those aforementioned house party policies.
A version of this story was first published by CityBeat sister paper San Antonio Current.
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