Airbnb is starting to test anti-party technology in the US and Canada. It announced a permanent ban on all parties and events at host properties worldwide back in June. Airbnb brought in such rules on a temporary basis after the COVID-19 pandemic hit to abide by social distancing restrictions.

The company began trialing similar tech in Australia last October. Airbnb says it was able to reduce the number of unauthorized parties in areas where it was using the tools by 35 percent. It's now rolling out the system more broadly in that country.

The anti-party tools look at several factors to detect "potentially high-risk reservations." They consider elements such as how long the prospective guest has had an Airbnb account, how far away the listing is from where they're based and their history of positive reviews. The system will also bear in mind the length of the trip and whether someone is trying to make a booking during the week or at the weekend.

It may, for instance, flag a planned stay of one or two nights over a weekend in the same city where the guest lives. Airbnb says that users who are precluded from staying at an entire home because of these measures can still book a hotel room or a private room. The host is more likely to be at the property in the latter case.

The company says it's trying to tackle unauthorized parties to the best of its ability. This system builds on tools that had a narrower focus on guests aged under 25, particularly those who wanted to stay nearby and didn't have positive reviews. Airbnb noted that the tools can't entirely prevent parties from taking place at listings. It has a tip line for neighbors to contact staff if they believe a party is taking place at a nearby host property or they have other concerns.

"We anticipate that this new system will help prevent more bad actors on our platform while having less of a blunt impact on guests who are not trying to throw a party," Airbnb wrote in a blog post. "While we are consistently willing to make trade-offs in the interests of building trust, our goal is to make these systems as precise and fair as possible to support our hosts and guests." Looking ahead, the company says it will detail the results of the test in the US and Canada and reveal other measures it plans to take to stamp out unauthorized parties.

As it promised earlier this year, Uber is testing bus and train travel options in the UK via a partnership with Berlin-based travel platform Omio, TechCrunch has reported. "We’re excited to launch our new travel offering this summer, allowing a seamless door-to-door travel experience across the UK," Uber UK general manager Andrew Brem said in a statement. 

Omio covers over 1,000 transportation providers in 37 countries. It has its own travel app for consumers, but has also been developing a business-to-business API that allows partners to access its ground transport network. The company also offers air and ferry travel on its consumer app and website, but its primary focus is on train and bus/coach travel.

The company has already partnered with UK's LNER, travel site Kayak and others, but Uber is its biggest partner so far. "Uber is the first partner that is both at this scale but also the first that gets access to our full ticketing API so you actually are, as a customer, able to do everything within the Uber app," Omio CEO and founder Narem Shaam told TechCrunch.

With access to Omio's API, Uber will be able to offer international train travel to UK users right away. Trips booked via Uber's app will generate a commission for Omio, which it will share with Uber via an undisclosed split. Uber is also paying Omio to license its technology. 

Omio believes that its app has a "high overlap" with Uber users, and is hoping the deal will increase its UK market penetration. Ground transport functionality will be added in phases with a basic feature set launching today and building out over the coming months. 

Airbnb is permanently banning all parties and events at host properties around the world, it announced. That follows a temporary 2020 ban it had instituted on house parties to comply with COVID-related social distancing restrictions. "Over time, the party ban became much more than a public health measure," Airbnb said in a blog post. "It developed into a bedrock community policy to support our Hosts and their neighbors."

Airbnb had already banned "chronic party houses" in 2019 following a California Halloween shooting that resulted in five deaths. It later barred all "open-invite" house parties, but still allowed invitation-only parties in single family dwellings. However, those too are now prohibited, under penalty of account suspension or full removal from the platform. 

On a more positive note, Airbnb lifted a 16-person occupancy cap also instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic. That's because certain properties "from castles in Europe to vineyards in the US to large beachfront villas in the Caribbean" can easily accommodate more than 16 people, it said, adding that "properties like these thrive on hosting multi-generational family trips and larger groups." 

The company runs a tip line that allows neighbors or others to report parties. Airbnb noted that it saw a 44 percent drop in the rate of party reports after the ban was implemented in 2020 and it suspended the accounts of around 6,600 guests for breaking the policy last year. 

Airbnb is permanently banning all parties and events at host properties around the world, it announced. That follows a temporary 2020 ban it had instituted on house parties to comply with COVID-related social distancing restrictions. "Over time, the party ban became much more than a public health measure," Airbnb said in a blog post. "It developed into a bedrock community policy to support our Hosts and their neighbors."

Airbnb had already banned "chronic party houses" in 2019 following a California Halloween shooting that resulted in five deaths. It later barred all "open-invite" house parties, but still allowed invitation-only parties in single family dwellings. However, those too are now prohibited, under penalty of account suspension or full removal from the platform.

On a more positive note, Airbnb lifted a 16-person occupancy cap also instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic. That's because certain properties "from castles in Europe to vineyards in the US to large beachfront villas in the Caribbean" can easily accommodate more than 16 people, it said, adding that "properties like these thrive on hosting multi-generational family trips and larger groups."

The company runs a tip line that allows neighbors or others to report parties. Airbnb noted that it saw a 44 percent drop in the rate of party reports after the ban was implemented in 2020 and it suspended the accounts of around 6,600 guests for breaking the policy last year.

Airbnb is shutting down its business in mainland China this summer due to mounting costs and domestic competition, reported CNBC. The online vacation rental platform first launched operations in China in 2016, spurred by enthusiasm from Chinese tourists who frequently use it while traveling abroad. But according to sources who spoke to CNBC, Airbnb’s China segment became too complex and expensive to operate, particularly in light of the pandemic. Similar to what happened with Uber in China, a bevy of local competitors made it tough for the American company to gain an edge. Stays in China only accounted for one percent of the platform’s revenue for the past few years.

While a growing number of cities have banned or passed restrictive laws on short-term rentals, Airbnb's fallout in China was due to entrenched competition and regulatory issues. Airbnb China operated differently than other Airbnb operations in other countries due to constraints by the Chinese government. The company was forced to sign agreements with local city governments and store its data on government servers.

Another more recent obstacle for Airbnb was an inconsistent flow of international and domestic visitors due to the pandemic, given China's significant restrictions on travel. While global tourism is on the mend, the number of international tourist arrivals still hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels according to figures by the UN World Tourism Organization. The Chinese government has also limited “unnecessary travel” for its citizens in light of a recent surge in COVID-19 numbers, scaling back the number of potential domestic users for Airbnb.

New York City may have more Airbnb listings than apartments for rent despite a 2016 law banning short-term rentals, Curbed has reported. April apartment rental inventory in Manhattan, Brooklyn and northwest Queens numbered 7,699 units, according to the Douglas Elliman report. That compares to somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 entire-apartment or entire-home Airbnb rental listings across all of NYC, as calculated by AirDNA and Inside Airbnb.

New York City has effectively prohibited short-term rentals (less than 30 days) in multi-unit buildings without the owner present since 2011, and made it illegal to even advertise such listings in 2016. If Airbnb renters are following the law, that means the listings are only active for short periods during the year.

Many could also be Brownstone "garden apartments" separated from but still a part of the main dwelling, which can be rented year-round by apartment owners. "A decade ago [those] may have gone to long-term tenants," Curbed noted. The lack of that inventory on the long-term rental market is particularly noticeable now with rentals so tight and prices averaging $3,925 per month in Manhattan.

Other factors may have contributed to the NYC housing shortage, though, Airbnb said. "Over the past two years, our entire space listing supply citywide has decreased, and it now represents a fraction of a percent of the city’s rental units — and all while rent prices have trended upward and city-issued permits for new-unit development remain down by a double-digit percentage," a spokesperson told Curbed in an email. In addition, some Airbnb listings may only be available for several weeks out of the year.

Airbnb is widely used by tourists and travelers, but hotels see them as unlicensed competition and city councils and housing advocates say that they take thousands of rentals off the market and distort market prices. The problem is particularly acute in cities with tight housing markets like New York and San Francisco, the latter of which also issued laws limiting rentals.

The extent to which Airbnb has contributed to a NYC housing shortage is debatable. However, the optics of having more Airbnb listings than rentable apartments isn't great in a brutal rental market. "Bidding wars accounted for one in five new lease signings," Elliman wrote. "Greater affordability is not right around the corner. More and more people are hunkering down."

Now that it's relatively safe to travel again, Airbnb is unveiling an overhauled experience that includes some much-needed features for frequent travellers. To start, the reworked app now lets you search for categories tied to the home style, location or activity. You can look for places close to national parks, or even book a treehouse. Airbnb is clearly hoping you'll book stays beyond the usual tourist hotspots.

The biggest addition, however, might be Split Stays. As the name implies, this lets you split a trip between two homes without having to separately book each location. You can split between categories or destinations, too. This promises to be helpful for long trips, or any travel where you won't stay in one place.

And while Airbnb no longer offers refunds if you get COVID-19, it is providing some extra protections to encourage travel. A new AirCover program will either relocate you or provide a refund if the host needs to cancel (within 30 days), if you can't check in or if the home doesn't match the advertised claims. The 24-hour safety phone line has also expanded support to 16 languages, and AirCover is built directly into both the app and Airbnb's website.

The reworked experience is available in the US today, and should spread worldwide this week. Airbnb may be stretching when it claims this is its largest change "in a decade," but it might be enough to prompt a vacation after two years of huddling in place.

Airbnb bookings made on or after May 31st will no longer be eligible for refunds for COVID-19-related issues. The upcoming change to the extenuating circumstances policy will apply to cases where a host or guest contracts COVID-19.

The company says the host's standard cancellation policy will apply instead. It says nearly two-thirds of active offer policies that allow guests to cancel up to five days (under the moderate policy) or up to 24 hours before check in (as per the flexible policy).

Reservations made before the end of next month may still be eligible for a COVID-19-linked refund if they meet the terms of Airbnb's policy. There are exceptions for domestic reservations in South Korea and mainland China. Airbnb said refunds will still be available there for some COVID-19-related circumstances for the foreseeable future.

"Some in the travel industry stopped this type of policy months ago, while others didn’t provide one at all," Airbnb wrote in a blog post. "After consultation with our medical advisors, as well as our community, we feel the time is now right to take the same step."

For what it's worth, Airbnb will soon start offering travel insurance. The product will be available in the coming months. Until then, the company says, those concerned that COVID-19 may disrupt their travel plans can buy insurance elsewhere.

The onset of the pandemic devastated the travel industry and Airbnb wasn't immune from the impact. The company laid off 25 percent of its workforce, or around 1,900 jobs, in May 2020. It seems Airbnb is hoping to get back to business as usual. It noted that "many countries have now implemented living with COVID-19 plans."

Still, the pandemic is not over. Around a third of the global population has yet to receive at least one vaccine dose. Data shows that, on average, 629,798 cases have been recorded worldwide in each of the last 14 days.

Airbnb is halting operations in Russia and Belarus, CEO Brian Chesky announced in a tweet. That includes around 90,000 active short-term rentals across different platforms in Russia and just over 1,800 in Belarus, according to Reuters. 

Chesky brought the situation up yesterday saying "all things are on the table" due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. On Monday this week, Airbnb offered free housing for up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees fleeing to European nations including Poland, Germany, Hungary and Romania. 

Airbnb users have been taking things into their own hands, too. Members of the public purchased Airbnb rentals in Ukraine to help get money to residents facing severe economic hardship, as The Guardian reported. "My wife and I have just booked your apartment for one week, but of course we will not be visiting. This is just so you can receive some money," wrote one user to an Airbnb renter in Ukraine. Airbnb has also agreed to waive guest and host fees on all bookings in the nation.

Over a million refugees have fled the country since Russia's invasion started, according to the UN, and it estimates that up to four million people could eventually leave.

Despite an already crowded market featuring big names like Airbnb and Vrbo, travel app Hopper is now expanding its services to include short-term home rentals.

Featuring more than two million properties spread across the world, Hopper Homes (which is available inside the Hopper app) should make it a bit easier to book airfare, car rentals and lodging (hotel or short-term) in a single place.

Hopper says users will be able to apply filters to help narrow down their options based on criteria like location, number of bedrooms, amenities and price. And over the next few months, the company says it will add support for some of its other booking features like Price Prediction and Cancel for Any Reason to the new service to help give its customers more flexibility over their travel plans.

That last part might end up being one of the biggest differentiators between Hopper Homes and its competitors. Other services such as Airbnb allow hosts to select from a range of cancellation policies including “flexible” plans that allow guests to cancel as late as 24 hours before check-in without penalty to “firm” plans that require guests to cancel at least 30 days before check-in.

By adding home rentals to its list of services, the company is hoping to attract a growing number of travelers who prefer staying in rental homes instead of hotels. Hopper claims Zoomers and millennials are especially keen, with more than four in 10 rental travelers being younger than 35.

Similar to its airfare and hotel bookings, Hopper also plans to integrate its Carrot Cash system in order to help customers save money, with credit earned from booking rentals homes able to be applied to other forms of travel.