Airbnb and Vrbo, an Expedia Group company, today announced a partnership to develop the Community Integrity Program, an industry collaboration to address community safety by sharing important information on listings and strengthening action on the community threat posed by repeat “party house” offenders.
Both companies have worked separately to address the challenge of disruptive party houses that are repeatedly reported. Vrbo’s Stay Neighborly and Airbnb’s Neighborhood Support Line allows community leaders, neighbors and hosts to elevate issues. However, the challenge persists, as repeat offenders may be delisted by one platform, only to pop up on another.
Neighbors don’t care if a party house is getting its reservations through any particular platform — they just want the parties to stop. That’s why one platform alone can’t solve this problem — it requires an industry-wide effort.
The Community Integrity Program aims to solve that issue. Airbnb and Vrbo plan to work with a trusted third-party intermediary to develop a process that identifies properties that have been permanently removed from each platform due to repeated violations of respective community policies. The information will be available for each company to take the appropriate action. The program is intended to launch in the United States in the coming months.
Airbnb and Vrbo encourage other short-term rental industry platforms and peers to join the Community Integrity Program.
While rare, disruptive parties can meaningfully impact the community’s quality of life. This pertains to a very small minority of short-term rental properties, however, for the neighbors these can be genuine neighborhood nuisances. Neither Airbnb nor Vrbo have tolerance for this type of irresponsible activity.
Industry collaboration is an important step in narrowing enforcement gaps and prioritizing the safety of the communities in which we all operate. This is the first step in building on an important foundation. Additional details about the Community Integrity Program will be coming soon.
You can find a digitized version of this announcement on Expedia Group’s Newsroom here and on Airbnb’s Newsroom here.