Airbnb is announcing the rollout of platform defenses and policies aimed at reducing disruptive parties over Halloween weekend.

Specifically, this Halloween Airbnb will take action on certain local reservations made by guests without a history of positive reviews, as part of our ongoing mission to promote responsible behavior and crack down on parties.

This Halloween action comes on the heels of two recent anti-party updates: Airbnb codified their Party Ban and introduced new anti-party technology in the US and Canada. 

Airbnb says they introduced these systems for Halloween 2021 and estimate that this crackdown resulted in a drop in incidents such as unauthorized parties by roughly 37 percent for Halloween 2021 in the U.S. and Canada. 

Specifically in Nevada, over 800 people were deterred by various anti-party defenses from booking entire home listings over Halloween 2021.

How things will work:

  • For one-night reservations -- Guests without a history of positive reviews on Airbnb will be prohibited from making one-night reservations in entire home listings.
  • For two-night reservations -- Guests attempting to book entire home listings without a history of positive reviews, within a certain locale, and/or last-minute reservations, will be redirected to listings that are not entire home listings or blocked altogether.  
  • Guests who have a history of positive reviews on Airbnb will not be subject to these restrictions.
  • For all guests attempting to make local reservations during the Halloween weekend, they must affirmatively attest that they understand that Airbnb bans parties and if they break that rule, they may be subject to legal action from the company (see example below).

These measures for holidays like Halloween are part of a larger strategy to partner with Hosts to combat disruptive parties.

Airbnb previously announced that following the introduction of their party ban in 2020, the company has seen a 77 percent year-over-year reduction in party reports in Nevada.