10 Ways to Prevent the Use of Airbnb for Parties

Airbnb put a temporary ban on all listings geared toward parties and events in August 2020. Despite the initial reasoning being directly related to Covid protocol, the company has decided to make the ban part of its policy after seeing good results.

Can you party in an Airbnb?

Unauthorized parties – and uninvited guests, for that matter – have always been prohibited at Airbnb listings. 73% of listings across the world already forbid parties in their House Rules and the great majority of guests conduct themselves in a respectful manner.

Airbnb has permitted hosts to exercise their best judgment before and approve small gatherings, such as birthday or baby shower parties, provided they’re suitable for their house and their neighborhood.

The bottom line: Airbnb doesn’t allow large parties that could be seen as a disturbance to the neighborhood anymore, but you can still have a few guests over at your host’s discretion.

That being said, the main kind of parties being prohibited are ones that are essentially “open invitations” and anything that can violate noise levels or generally disturb the peace. This regulation does not seem to target small gatherings but it’s still worth knowing what you can host within the limits by being transparent with your host and being considerate of the neighbors.

Airbnb Party Policy Explained

While the ban started off as a public health measure, its success bolstered Airbnb’s commitment to fighting disruptive parties.

The ban is permanent as of June 2022 and will be enforced through the means of: 

• anti-party reservation prevention,
• special holiday anti-party measures,
• a 24-hour safety line,
• their Neighborhood Support Line,
• and a partnership with Vrbo to share information on repeat “party house” offenders in the US.

They will do this and more to stop unauthorized parties, as well as chronic party houses.

Anti-Party Reservation Prevention

The company’s “anti-party” technology uses an algorithm to find prospective rule-breakers by looking at indicators like the history of good reviews, the length of the user’s trip, the distance to the listing, and weekday vs. weekend booking.

According to Airbnb, the technology is intended to stop bookings that might develop into unauthorized parties. For instance, it will make it more challenging for guests to organize a party without authorization by preventing possible rule-breakers from booking a full house and instead giving them the choice to reserve a single room on listings where hosts will be present onsite.

Holiday Anti-Party Measures

In order to improve Hosts’ defense against unauthorized parties, Airbnb implemented additional tools and guidelines to enforce their party policy for occasions like the Fourth of July, Halloween, and New Year’s Eve. We think it succeeded. These efforts received positive feedback from their Host community, and those weekends were pretty quiet.

They enacted additional regulations to assist in the prevention of unauthorized parties during Halloween 2021 because of this, the cornerstone strategy being a ban on one-night Halloween reservations for visitors without a track record of favorable evaluations in complete home listings.

24-Hour Safety Line

You will have first-priority access to professionally trained safety agents day or night – covered in 16 languages – if you ever feel unsafe.

24 hours before check-in, it appears in the app’s Safety Center, and 24 hours after check-out, it vanishes.

Users who phone the Urgent Support Line for non-urgent issues are respectfully transferred to the general Community Support line by support staff so that the Safety team can focus on handling actual crises when every second counts.

Neighborhood Support Line

To build confidence in their platform, Airbnb gave guests, hosts, and the communities where they operate direct access, they established a neighborhood support hotline in the US in December 2019 so that neighbors could speak with them directly about their problems.

Since then, 29 nations and territories have accessed the hotline, including Canada, the Netherlands, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Hungary, France, Spain, Korea, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and more.

This hotline has proven to be a valuable resource in the fight against unauthorized parties and enforcement of the prohibition of noisy parties in compliance with their parties and events policy.

Partnership With Vrbo

In order to address community safety through information sharing on listings and stepping up response to the threat posed to the neighborhood by repeat “party house” offenders, Airbnb and Vrbo have partnered to create the Community Integrity Program.

The problem of disruptive party houses, which are widely cited, has been addressed by both businesses independently. Issues can be brought to the attention of community officials, neighbors, and hosts through Vrbo’s Stay Neighborly and Airbnb’s Neighborhood Support Line.

What exactly does Airbnb consider a party?

Celebration is often a part of travel. People frequently travel to celebrate special occasions, such as birthdays or destination weddings.

Airbnb’s definition of  “party” may include birthday parties, home or dinner parties, engagement parties, bachelorette and hen parties, and more. The possibility of wedding receptions is based on having the guest discuss all the details of your event with the host before making the reservation.

In accordance with their Community Disturbance Policy, Airbnb prohibits:

• Disruptive gatherings
• Open-invite gatherings
• Disturbances to the surrounding community such as:
  • Excessive noise
  • Excessive visitors
  • Excessive trash/littering
  • Smoking nuisances
  • Parking nuisances
  • Trespassing
  • Vandalism
  • Advertising listings as party or event friendly

If a guest, host, or listing violates their terms, Airbnb may take action, including suspending or removing them from the platform.

They may suspend the listing if it is promoted as being suitable for parties or other events until the offending content is deleted. They could also request that the host add a clear prohibition against parties and similar activities on their listing. If a Host has set an unreasonable occupancy for a listing, they may be asked to change it in order to reduce the likelihood of unruly gatherings.

The listing may be permanently deleted from Airbnb in rare instances when it appears that the property is primarily meant for hosting parties or events (for example, party or event venues) or where a listing has caused a serious or ongoing disturbance in the neighborhood.

How to Prevent House Parties at Your Airbnb

To stop a wild event from taking place in your vacation rental, you will need to keep the bad apples away in order to maintain the peace.

Here are 10 things you can do to stay on top of rowdy guests and stop any party planning in its tracks.

1. Set A 2-Night Minimum

Most partying takes place during only one night. With fewer visitors and less time for the party, you can avoid the party throwers.

Airbnb has had this 2-night policy in place since the holidays of December 2020 and this rule goes double for guests without any positive reviews.

2. Vet Your Guests

Upon confirmation, you need to ask a few standard questions. Find out who will be welcome in your home, check their history, find out how many cars are planned for parking on the property, and validate their ID.

You can select an Instant Book option to check the Government ID of guests to verify their identity if the guests violate the Airbnb no-party rule. You could also ask for references.

3. Use Guest Screening Apps

Apps like Autohost and Superhog help you check visitors to ensure a secure reservation is not compromised or fraudulent.

The agency may also conduct background checks in the event of fraud, sex offenses, and felonies. Safely uses an online database for holiday renters to check rules, violations, property damage, or payments at other locations.

4. Use Noise Or Motion Sensors

NoiseAware software can monitor noise levels within a room. The system will warn you if levels are above an agreed limit. You can call or email any offenders if you receive any warnings during their stay, but also be sure to let them know that you have this tech in place.

Those who do not comply should notify Airbnb of their cancellation, so be sure to double-check. You can also make noise complaints through your local authority.

NB: Please make sure this device is clearly described in your description so guests aren’t caught off guard or feel like their stay in being intruded upon.

5. Communicate

Ensure you confirm your guests’ reservations. Contact guests to confirm that they understand and accept the terms of their booking before arriving. Reiterate Airbnb’s no-parties policy and all related policies such as no smoking and minimum capacity.

Communication with the visitor doesn’t only help prevent unauthorized parties, but also with the rest of the screening process to rule out any undesirable behavior.

Ask for a response through Airbnb, and if the answer is no or there’s no response, that’s a red flag. The person may be a third-party booking or may not respect your house rules.

6. Use Mobile Phone Detectors

The device monitors how many phones you have in an area. Party Squasher is an intelligent sensor that connects to your Airbnb’s Internet router.

The system will check the number of phones on or around your property. Once connected, it can detect individuals in the front and backyards as well as throughout the entire house. You know the crowd is growing in size so you can act immediately before the noises and parties begin.

However, this technology will perform much better in a free-standing home or a stand-alone property compared to apartments where multiple users use their phones simultaneously.

7. Get Your Neighbor’s Cooperation

Ask for the assistance of neighbors who are watching your house. Give them your number and ask them to call you directly if they see anything suspicious.

You’ll find the neighborhood easier when someone comes to stay nearby an Airbnb. Plus, you can let guests know your neighbor is watching your apartment at your request when you book the hotel so the behavior will not become violent.

8. Use An External Camera

An outside camera can tell you how often a visitor has come onto a property. They’ll also list the number of those who came to your door at check-in. Guests who book rooms for multiple people but show up at the same time can complain to Airbnb or cancel their stay. But make it transparent.

9. Use the Tools Provided

Members of the neighborhood can report suspected instances of an Airbnb listing or Experience that are believed to be disturbing the neighborhood, whether it is because of excessive noise, an unruly gathering, or unsafe behavior.

This gives access to the Neighborhood Support team phone line, which can be used to report a party or other ongoing disruption in the community. As soon as a problem is reported, Airbnb will send a confirmation email outlining the next steps. An emergency services link is also available on this page.

10. Create A Rental Contract

The majority are people who ignore these rules. But rule-breakers easily claim they never saw them.

Make a simple and secure form that all guests will sign for confirmation of their compliance with your regulations.

Conclusion

There you have it. Ten ways to keep the parties away from your Airbnb listing and to keep the peace in the neighborhood.

Stay on top of any disturbances by automating any and all repetitive tasks with iGMS‘ vacation rental software. It can help:

• Automate guest messaging, like sending check-in instructions and house rules
• Set triggers to reply to your guest instantly.
• Manage multiple accounts and listings across the top booking platforms from a single interface.
• Synchronize reservations across multiple platforms and your website to eliminate the risk of getting a double booking.
• Create your own direct bookings website in minutes with our Website Builder.
• Connect your Stripe account to iGMS to receive payouts and create invoices.
• Automate guest and host review send-outs.
• And more.

Why not try out all the iGMS tools for yourself? We would like to invite you to join our weekly live webinars and start your free 14-day trial.