In an effort to mitigate the house party trend that led to huge property damage for Airbnb renters’ houses, the platform has taken support from AI.
Are you a property owner? How would you feel if your property was entrusted to someone for a comfortable temporary stay at your abode, and you ended up receiving it in an unrecognizable condition? While the first thought would be to take immediate legal action, the second thought often leads to self-recovery from all the damages.
After the pandemic-led lockdown was over, people started hoarding Airbnbs to party and drink overnight, as the clubs and party places were still not allowed to open. This led to multiple incidents being reported on the platform regarding property damage, missing antiques, and broken furniture across the world.
After noticing a significant rise in the number of reported incidents, Airbnb took swift action by announcing a ‘Global Party Ban’, and also publicly condemned such behavior. However, the campaign did not have much impact on the house owners as the guests kept disguising themselves as get-togethers or close-knit occasions.
It further escalated the issue and implemented automatic restriction algorithms for people under 25 without an excellent review history. It also banned reported party abusers from making further bookings on the platform. After these measures, Airbnb published a 55% decline in the reported incidents of property abuse. But to help the house owners who wholeheartedly rent out their beautiful homes, the world’s largest temporary property rental platform, Airbnb, has sought the help of Artificial Intelligence.
What Will The AI Do?
More than AI, we can think of the tech Airbnb uses as a highly functional algorithm against party abusers. The algorithm is trained to identify people based on their booking patterns. For instance, if someone from the city is looking for an Airbnb for just one night, it is likely to party. But if the same person does this activity on an occasion like New Year’s Eve, it will certainly be a party. Thus, the platform automatically rejects the bookings of such users, raising a big red flag against them for future reference.
If the AI finds a moderate potential for party booking, it redirects the user to one of its partner hotel companies where partying can be facilitated and monitored by a professional staff. The purpose of Airbnb’s AI development is not only to reduce the number of booking abuses but also to reassure its already damaged house owner network to return to the platform. It is also planning to utilize AI capabilities to improve the overall user journey of local consumers and travelers alike.
