Airbnb cracking down on party bookings for Memorial Day weekend
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Airbnb is announcing new restrictions to help prevent parties in Missouri over Memorable Day weekend while local governments look at regulating the short-term rental industry.
In an effort to promote responsible travel, Airbnb has created new measures aimed at “reducing the risk of disruptive and unauthorized parties in Missouri,” the company said Wednesday in a news release. These measures block one- and two-night reservations over Memorial Day weekend and the Fourth of July.
"Our policy is we ban parties on airbnb and we certainly do not want disruptive parties that can impact host and that can impact neighbors too," Airbnb spokesperson Ben Breit told ABC 17 News.
Airbnb estimates that a similar crackdown last year helped reduce the number of disruptive parties, specifically in Missouri. The company estimates over 200 people were deterred from booking entire home listings over Memorial Day weekend due to these defenses.
"We know that everyone is not going to follow the rules and meanwhile we know that there are certain holiday weekends, Memorial Day and Fourth of July would be two of them, Halloween and New Years eve would be two others where we may see an increase in attempts to maybe try and throw an unauthorized party," Breit said.
The company is also encouraging neighbors of homes listed on Airbnb to contact them if they spot a party in progress. Airbnb already has party prevention systems and a party ban in place.
Columbia has been working on measures to prevent disruptions from visitors with short-term rental regulations since 2018. The Planning and Zoning Commission is on their second draft of regulatory standards that would require extra licensing and would restrict where short-term rentals could be located.
Patrick Zenner explained what the goal of these regulations are.
"How do we create a process by which people have an easy way of being able to report a complaint and we have an easy way to go out and inspect?"
The Planning Commission plans to present their findings in June. But they expect they will have to edit their second draft of regulations further because they received slightly over 50 written comments.
The City Council is seeking public comments before advancing the proposal.
St. Louis suburb St. Charles has put a hold on short-term rental bookings in that city.
