American company that operates homestays for vacation, rental, and tourism activities, Airbnb has recently disclosed its plan to make permanent the ban of parties in their apartments, after it noticed a sharp drop in reports of unauthorized gatherings since the prohibition was put in place in August 2020.
The company disclosed how it witnessed a 44% year-after-year drop in the rate of party reports since implementing the policy. Recall that due to the covid-19 pandemic, to curb the spread of the virus, the San Francisco-based company had to introduce and extend the party ban on its apartments.
Currently, the company now intends to place a permanent ban on parties as the summer season begins. The company also disclosed its plans to remove its 16-person limit, allowing larger homes listed on the platform to be booked to full occupancy.
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Airbnb has gone ahead to update its policies, by removing the event-friendly search filter, and parties and events allowed which they disclosed will remain inaccessible.
Guest who have been reported for throwing a party that violates their rules, Airbnb will not hesitate to remove them from their platform. The company has also strengthened its rules around parties, by developing sensitive detection technologies that will put to a halt disruptive parties before they commence.
All these rules aforementioned have been put out by Airbnb to avoid guests from being a nuisance in the neighborhood. The company has so far suspended the accounts of about 6,600 guests for violating its party ban.
Although the party ban does not totally ban parties from happening in the apartments, rather the company disclosed that it is only placing a ban on open parties that tend to be noisy which constitutes a lot of nuisance to the neighborhood.
However, Airbnb will allow hosts to hold limited less noisy parties like baby showers, bridal showers, family gatherings, etc. While it’s natural to unwind and have fun at the apartments, when loud music, noise, drugs, etc enter the picture, it automatically goes against the rule which the company disclosed that it won’t tolerate.
Airbnb also disclosed that the reason why it had to enforce these rules, was that some unscrupulous people chose to take bar and club behavior to these apartments, forgetting that the settings are different.
The company is no doubt going hard on these rules, as they have teamed up with Vrbo, another American vacation rental online marketplace to combat house party offenders.
Both companies will be working together to address the issue of disruptive parties in their apartments. Airbnb disclosed that they alone can’t solve the problem, as it requires an industry-related effort.
Airbnb and Vrbo have also urged other short-term rental companies to partner with them to curb the menace of noisy house parties.
This is a good step taken by Airbnb, as so-called disruptive house parties have long been a problem for short-term rental companies. They cause so much noise and nuisance to the neighborhood and even pose serious problems to the environment like violence, damage of properties, and non-compliance with safety standards.
Airbnb has known that if such disruptive parties continue, as well as the incessant complaints from neighbors, the government might be forced to step in which can lead to the sealing up of apartments, which will affect the company’s revenue.