Airbnb says 1 million listings use ‘instant book’ anti-bias feature
Airbnb says it’s making strides in combating racism in the home-rental marketplace, pointing to the speedy uptake of a new feature that thwarts discrimination by hosts.
More than 1 million listings — one out of three — are now available through “instant book,” which lets renters book places immediately without prior approval, an effort to keep hosts from discriminating on the basis of race, sexual orientation and other factors. Only one hotel chain has more rooms than Airbnb has instantly bookable listings, the San Francisco company told USA TODAY.
The announcement was made Thursday in Washington during a meeting with civil rights groups and Belinda Johnson, Airbnb’s chief business and legal officer.
Airbnb offered civil rights leaders an overview of steps it has taken, from pushing the use of instant bookings to requiring rental hosts to sign an anti-discrimination pledge, Airbnb adviser and civil rights activist Laura Murphy said in an interview.
This is a “new era of engagement and accountability that’s self-imposed,” Murphy said.
Among the areas in which Airbnb has made progress, ac- cording to Murphy:
All Airbnb users will have to sign off on an anti-discrimination commitment by the end of January or be prohibited from using Airbnb. So far, the acceptance rate has been more than 95%, with fewer than 1% of the 1.5 million users who have seen the commitment rejecting it.
Under Airbnb’s new “Open Doors” policy, specially trained employees find lodging for any guest denied a booking because of discrimination.
Airbnb says it fields about 100 requests a week out of more than 1 million stays on peak nights.
In January, Airbnb plans to experiment with minimizing racially identifying information such as names and photos and highlighting more relevant information for hosts such as reviews, ID verification and stated purpose of the trip. The experiment was designed by a 12-person team of engineers, data scientists and researchers. By making names and photos less prominent, Airbnb hopes to make it harder for hosts to discriminate, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Criticism of Airbnb began with last year’s Harvard University study that found it was tougher for guests with African-American-sounding names to rent rooms through the service. That criticism gained national attention with accounts on social media of people being denied lodging because of race using the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack.
CEO Brian Chesky pledged to take action. Discrimination, he said, was the biggest challenge facing his company and one he acknowledged it had been too slow to address.
The stakes are high for IPO-bound Airbnb, valued by private investors at $30 billion. It has plenty of incentive to tamp down on discrimination if it wants to continue to persuade people, particularly Millennials, who are its biggest users and who are 43% minorities, to stay in home rentals in the thousands of cities where Airbnb operates.
A 90-day comprehensive review of discrimination on the service led by Murphy and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder began in June, culminating in a 32-page report in September.
Critics say Airbnb’s reforms have not gone far enough to deter discriminatory behavior and it has not been transparent enough about those efforts.
“I wish that there were clearer mechanisms for openness and an enhanced ability to be held accountable,” Boston University economics professor Raymond Fisman said.
Said Murphy: “These were tough issues before the election. They continue to be tough issues after the election. This is about the company saying: This is the right thing to do and this is what our investors want us to do, this is what the founders want to do.” Among other efforts underway:
Airbnb began offering antibias training for hosts and employees in November. So far 25% of employees have taken it and all will complete it by January.
Airbnb is stepping up efforts to recruit hosts from underserved communities, working with organizations to hold events, one in Los Angeles in October and one in Chicago in December, with plans this month for events in Seattle and Washington, D.C.
“You have got to build systems that are conscious and don’t inadvertently lead to discrimination,” Murphy said. “I don’t think you can do that without having diverse teams working on these things.”