Airbnb announced earlier this month that 100% of its homes will be verified by December 2020, and today the home-sharing platform extended that pledge to its ever-growing Airbnb Experiences business in a bid to restore trust among its customers.
In a statement, Airbnb said every Experience is already “reviewed for quality,” though a representative declined to provide details. Going forward, the platform will be introducing “tools that verify the quality and accuracy of Experiences using a series of signals, including information from guests.”
Airbnb will also be investing in “additional layers of screening” and new requirements for “technically specialized Experiences” such as outdoor adventures. The company did not set a timeline for completing these evaluations, like it did with its home-sharing platform.
The home-sharing platform debuted in 2008, it didn’t add Experiences until November 2016 and now offers more than 40,000 events in more than 1,000 cities worldwide, according to the company. In addition to activities and outings created by its hosts, Airbnb has made major investments in alternative destination travel site Atlas Obscura and Tiquet, a museum and attractions platform popular in Europe.
“These changes are consistent with our ongoing work to invest in our company and support our hosts and guests,” Airbnb said in a statement. “We are making significant foundational investments this year that will support our community over the next decade and beyond.”
Verifying its listings and now Experiences, with several more safety measures in the works, is all part of Airbnb’s push to win back consumer trust after a spate of negative press. A Halloween night shooting at an Airbnb “party house,” which the company has since banned, left five people dead, while Vice uncovered what it claims is a nationwide bait-and-switch scam on the platform in which guests have their reservations changed to low-quality properties.
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