No parties or events at Airbnb properties
Pandemic rule limits sites to 16 people
Airbnb has announced a global ban on parties and events listed on its platform in a bid to comply with covid-19 health protocols.
Citing changing public health mandates on gatherings, the San Francisco-based home-sharing company said in a blog post Thursday that some customers have chosen to “take bar and club behavior to homes, sometimes rented through our platform.”
Airbnb company said the ban, which applies to future bookings, will limit occupancy to 16 people and will remain in effect indefinitely. It may offer exceptions for boutique hotels or other event venues.
The company said it will expel or take legal action against hosts and guests who don’t comply with the new rules.
Last week, for the first time, Airbnb took legal action against a guest who held an unauthorized party in Sacramento County, Calif.
“We think such conduct is incredibly irresponsible,” Airbnb said Thursday. “We do not want that type of business, and anyone engaged in or allowing that behavior does not belong on our plat
form.”
Airbnb has always prohibited unauthorized parties, and the company said nearly 75% of its listings explicitly ban parties.
But after a deadly shooting at a California Airbnb rental on Halloween, the company has taken multiple steps to crack down on parties. Five people were killed in the shooting, which happened during an unauthorized party.
In November, Airbnb started manually reviewing U.S. and Canadian reservations to weed out suspicious rentals, like a guest who booked a onenight stay close to his home. It expanded that program to Australia last week.
In July, Airbnb banned U.S. and Canadian guests younger than 25 with fewer than three positive reviews from booking entire homes close to where they live. It expanded that policy to the United Kingdom, Spain and France last week.
Airbnb said it also plans to expand a hotline for neighbors to report unauthorized parties.
Airbnb says around 2% of the 7 million properties listed on its site can accommodate 16 or more people. There are at least 53 in London, 277 in Beijing, 170 in New York and 116 in Los Angeles, according to the company’s website.
The company also said it wants to make sure it’s complying with public health mandates. Los Angeles County has a ban on gatherings of people from different households, for example.
Airbnb said the coronavirus-related closure of bars and nightclubs has led to an increase in big house parties, sometimes at its rentals.
“We do not want that type of business, and anyone engaged in or allowing that behavior does not belong on our platform,” the company said in its post.
Twelve-year-old Airbnb has been trying to shed its couch-surfing image and appeal to more types of travelers ahead of its initial public offering. Last year it announced an effort to verify all its properties, for example.
Airbnb filed preliminary paperwork for a stock offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, undaunted by a global pandemic that has taken some wind out of its home-sharing business. The initial public offering could take place later this year.
Airbnb said Wednesday that the number of shares it plans to sell, the price and the timing of the offering haven’t been determined.
The company has long been expected to go public. Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky told The Associated Press this summer that he was working on the public offering documents when the pandemic hit the U.S. in March.