Airbnb is blocking some Wisconsin rentals on summer holiday weekends to address partying

With summer weekend getaways fast approaching in Wisconsin, short-term rental company Airbnb is blocking some reservations to prevent homes from being used for partying.

Airbnb said in a press release that it blocked about 67,500 people over the Memorial Day and July 4 weekends last year, with about 500 of those blocked in Wisconsin. The company is blocking some one-night and two-night reservations over both holidays and using technology that they say identifies "higher-risk" rentals.

"This is really about respecting hosts and respecting neighborhoods," said Christopher Nulty, Airbnb spokesperson and global director of corporate and policy communications, in an interview with the Journal Sentinel. "What we're really talking about here is unauthorized, large-scale problematic parties."

An Airbnb spokesperson said in an email the company wouldn't have data on this year's blocked reservations until after the holiday season. But Nulty said that the company sees this effort becoming especially important in Wisconsin during the summer months.

"We're particularly focused on this in Wisconsin during the (summer) because it's when people from Chicago go up to Door County. The business is strongest here in the summer," Nulty said.

Nulty said the company is using machine learning to automatically flag some reservations.

He said its reservation system looks at a number of factors, like when a reservation is booked, how far away it is from where someone lives and whether someone has made similar bookings without challenges.

He said the technology has reduced reports of partying by half in the last year and that .035% of its reservations resulted in a party report to them in 2023.

The company is requiring guests to agree that they understand the ban on partying when making reservations. In turn, if a guest is blocked from booking an entire home, the company will give them the option of booking a hotel room or private room.

The party bans started in 2022, according to a USA TODAY report from that year, as the COVID-19 pandemic led some to use the rentals for partying, with bars and clubs closed.

Nulty said Airbnb began the effort to reduce partying on reservations as a way to respect the hosts, rather than responding to a widespread issue. He said Airbnb still allows homes to be used for things like weddings, birthday parties and other small-scale events.

The company heard from hosts and law enforcement in the past about the need for this emphasis, he said.

"People don’t want to share their homes if they’re worried about what’s going to happen to them," Nulty said.

The company's other anti-partying efforts include its Neighborhood Support Line, which lets neighborhood residents report issues at rentals to the company; a 24-hour safety line; noise sensors for hosts; and a law enforcement support channel.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Airbnb blocks reservations in Wisconsin for holiday partying