Bea Beltran Tech 01.31.2023 01:Jan AM EST

Rental Marketplace Vrbo to Prevent Bookings for Super Bowl Parties

Super Bowl Parties can get rowdy as the game progresses and tensions run high, and it's sure to make a mess once it's done. People might think that renting a place will save them the trouble of cleaning up and having their things broken, but Vrbo is onto that thought.

Party at Your Own Place

The 2023 Super Bowl is fast approaching, and Vrdo is anticipating a rise in rentals for parties. The travel website already has measures in place to make sure that no one's home will become a partying ground for the event.

They are releasing the "unauthorized event prevention technology" to detect whether a person is renting to host a party. The system will rate a user with a "risk score" which will be based on the duration of the stay, lead time, and the ratio of beds to guests.

As mentioned in Gizmodo, it will also track whether the user is looking for a property, how long they have been using the app, how far their home address is to the place they aim to rent, and how long the trip will be.

Should the user be flagged, the host of the property will receive an email saying that the booking is "high risk." This provides them the option of canceling the rental without penalties. The renter will also receive an email detailing Vrbo's policies about unauthorized events.

Vrbo's Party Prevention Technology

The policy has already been through a 12-month pilot phase, which has prevented over 500 unauthorized bookings in the US. In those flagged rentals, the company estimated that roughly $2.5 million in party-related damages were saved for its hosts.

It is one of the ways that the company can assist its hosts with the influx of visitors who will be arriving in Phoenix for the Super Bowl. Phoenix is the home ground for several major sporting events like college bowl games, spring training, pro golf tournaments, and the Super Bowl.

Philip Minardi, the director of Public Affairs in Vrbo's parent company, mentioned that although disruptive parties are rare on the short-term rental service, they are still addressing the issue. This prevents problematic incidents before it even begins.

The company is implementing a no-tolerance policy for unauthorized parties. Any traveler who violates the policy and breaks the rental agreement will be banned. This also goes for hosts who allow any of the violations to occur.

The prevention technology will not allow same-day bookings, and hosts may disable the Instant Book option for short booking windows. If a party does happen they will be detected by the remote noise-monitoring company NoiseAware, wherein hosts will receive real-time updates.

Even if renters slip through the prevention policy and the noise-monitoring measures, there's also the web portal Stay Neighborly, wherein local officials as well as neighbors can contact the company's customer service to file nuisance problems.

Vrbo has partnered with Airbnb to develop the Community Integrity Program, which addresses community safety. Information about problematic listings will be shared in order to identify offenders who host parties.