Airbnb is making a further change to its reservation process, only in Oregon, for now
Airbnb has just announced a change in the reservation process, and more specifically in the management of the display of profiles. This change currently only affects the state of Oregon, United States.
It is a question of hiding the names of the guests from the host. This one will be able to see them only once the reservation accepted, to fight against discrimination. This change will be fully effective on January 31 of 2022.
Airbnb makes a new change in its booking process
The objective is therefore to fight against racial discrimination among hosts, according to the company’s announcement, by preventing them from guessing the origin of a particular guest from their simple name.
A 2016 study found that Airbnb guests with “black sounding” names were 16% less likely to have their reservation request accepted compared to guests whose names “sound white”.
The announcement follows an out-of-court settlement reached by Airbnb in 2019 following a complaint from three Portland-area women. The plaintiffs, all black, accused the platform of allowing hosts to discriminate against black users by forcing guests to put their name and photo on their profile.
Only in Oregon, for the moment
After this agreement with the complainants, Airbnb announced that it would “update the way names in profiles are displayed to hosts during the reservation process.”
Airbnb has spoken a lot in the past about the importance of racial justice to them. The platform now asks users to agree to its Airbnb Community Commitment, to commit not to discriminate against anyone. It also launched Project Lighthouse, an initiative to study discrimination on its platform, in the summer of 2020.
Prior to this program, the company said it had no way to measure “megatrends and other related grounds. to discrimination ”during reservations.
Airbnb guests are not required to provide a profile picture (although hosts may require them to reserve their listing). Since 2018, the platform also kept photos of guests invisible before the booking was confirmed.
The change, also taken to combat discrimination, has proven somewhat controversial among users, with some fearing that it could put marginalized guests in dangerous situations they could have avoided. “I would rather see my reservation refused rather than get beaten up or killed when I get there,” explained one user.
If the company is indeed aiming for such a strategy to reduce discrimination, why limit it to Oregon? Spokeswoman Liz DeBold Fusco did not directly say whether this feature will expand in the near future. According to the official announcement, it read:
“As part of our ongoing projects, we will take any results of this change and use them to inform our future efforts to combat discrimination.” The company added that it planned to “continue to work with its hosts and guests as well as with civil rights leaders to make more inclusive community.”