If you’ve booked an Airbnb for December 31 in Sydney with intentions of holding the mother of all New Year’s Eve beanos, be warned – the short-stay accommodation provider is onto you.

Airbnb says it is “rolling out anti-party technology to help reduce the risk of authorised and disruptive parties over NYE”, with Australia, New Zealand, the US, Puerto Rico, Canada, the UK, France and Spain.

Last year it said around 74,000 people around the world were “deterred” from booking on NYE. Remarkably, 4,200 of them were in Texas, USA (no figures were supplied for Australia).

“This anti-party technology uses machine learning to identify and block potentially higher-risk bookings of entire home listings from being made,” Airbnb said.

 

Airbnb NYE 2024.

“Airbnb’s defences assess a number of signals – including the length of the trip, the type of listing, how far the listing is from the guest’s location, and when the reservation is being made – to help determine the potential risk for a disruptive, unauthorised party.”

If a booking is identified as higher risk, Airbnb said the guest will either be blocked from booking, or redirected to alternative accommodations on the platform.

There will be “restrictions on one-to-three night reservations: Our systems will block higher-risk one, two or three night bookings for entire home listings”.

There is also “mandatory anti-party attestation”, which means guests “who can make reservations will need to confirm that they understand that disruptive and unauthorised parties are not allowed on Airbnb, and they face suspension or removal from the platform if they violate this policy”.

A Sydney search of the Airbnb site showed only a few dozen properties located in the city or near eastern suburbs beaches available for a one-night booking on December 31.

A luxury three-bedroom house on Sydney’s northern beaches with an infinity pool overlooking the beach was a one-night steal at $7,568, including a cleaning fee of $550 and a lazy $1,017.18 for Airbnb.