Airbnb heightens Halloween party crackdown with new anti-party defenses

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

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

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

This years’ crackdown follows Airbnb’s move to codify its party ban in June that prohibited open-invite gatherings due to pandemic-related health concerns. The ban was made permanent to avoid “‘chronic party houses’ that had developed into neighborhood nuisances,” according to Airbnb’s website.

Additionally, the short-term rental company introduced anti-party technology that would work to help identify high-risk reservations and would look into a renters’ review history, length of time a guest has used Airbnb, whether the rental was on a weekend versus a weekday, and other factors.

This year, some additional measures that are enacted for party prevention include:

Prohibiting guests without a history of positive Airbnb review from making one-night reservations for entire homes.
Prohibiting guests from attempting to book an entire home for two nights without a history of positive reviews, within certain locations, and with last minute reservations. Guests who meet that criteria will be redirected to listings that are not entire home listings or blocked.
Requiring all guests attempting to make local reservations during the holiday weekend to attent that they understand the party ban and will be subject to legal action from 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 are respectful of their Host’s homes and the neighborhood surrounding them,” the company said. “We continue to believe these defenses help support safer travel, combat disruptive behaviors and parties while allowing guests, Hosts, and neighbors to enjoy the Halloween weekend safely.”