Airbnb to Cancel and Block Washington Area Bookings for Inauguration Week

On 13 January 2021, Airbnb said it would cancel reservations in the Washington, D.C. metro area during the week of the presidential inauguration and block new ones from being booked for that time. Guests whose reservations were canceled would be refunded in full, the company said in a post on its newsroom, and hosts would be reimbursed at Airbnb's expense. Reservations made through HotelTonight, the hotel booking service Airbnb owns, were to be canceled too.

Brian Chesky, Airbnb's chief executive, put it in two sentences on Twitter the same day, in a tweet that TechCrunch reproduced. The first said the company had canceled all Airbnb reservations in DC for inauguration week. The second set out the money: “Guests will be issued a full refund and hosts will still be paid in full for these canceled bookings.”

The inauguration was set for 20 January. One week before Airbnb's announcement, on 6 January, the United States Capitol had been the scene of what the company's post called violent criminal activity, and what the leaders of Washington, Maryland and Virginia called a violent insurrection. Airbnb gave no count of the bookings involved: it declined to tell the Associated Press how many reservations were canceled.

What Airbnb said it would cancel and pay

The post set out the terms. Airbnb would cancel reservations in the Washington, D.C. metro area during what it called the Inauguration week, and block any new reservation in the area for that time. Guests would be refunded in full. “We also will reimburse hosts, at Airbnb’s expense, the money they would have earned from these cancelled reservations,” the company wrote. Chesky's tweet said hosts would be paid in full. Neither statement gave a dollar figure or said how a host's payout would be worked out.

The post left other questions open. Airbnb did not specify the precise dates the policy applied to, NPR reported. The Washington news site DCist reported that it was unclear how Airbnb defined the Washington metro area and how far the block on bookings reached. As of 13 January, DCist found, local listings could still be seen on Airbnb's site for the week of the inauguration.

From a review of bookings to a blanket cancellation

Two days earlier, on 11 January, Airbnb had announced something narrower: the Capitol Safety Plan, a seven-step plan for the greater D.C. area. The company said it was reviewing reservations in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and would cancel a booking, and ban the guest, where it confirmed that the guest was associated with what it called a hate group or had broken its policies on violence or criminal activity. It announced no general cancellation.

On 13 January the company went further and gave its reasons. It said it was responding to local, state and federal officials who had asked people not to travel to Washington. It named three: Mayor Bowser, Governor Hogan and Governor Northam, who it said had been clear that visitors should not travel to the D.C. Metro area for the inauguration. It said it was aware of reports, emerging on the afternoon of 12 January, of what it called armed militias and known hate groups attempting to travel and disrupt the inauguration.

The three leaders had spoken on Monday 11 January. In a joint statement printed by CBS Baltimore, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser cited what they called the previous week's violent insurrection and the COVID-19 pandemic, and encouraged Americans not to come to Washington, D.C. and to take part virtually instead.

What hosts, neighbors and local officials said

DCist reported that Washingtonians on Nextdoor, Twitter and Facebook had been urging Airbnb hosts to take their properties off the platform ahead of the inauguration. NPR reported that neighborhood message boards had carried accounts of shouting matches between Airbnb guests and D.C. neighbors in the days before the announcement, and that hosts had noted that Airbnb typically penalizes a host who cancels a booking.

Two local officials backed the move. John Falcicchio, the District's deputy mayor for economic development and planning, told DCist that he supported Airbnb's decision. Sherene Joseph, a newly elected advisory neighborhood commissioner and a former Airbnb host, told DCist she hoped Vrbo and others in the hospitality industry would use it as a template.

Not every host was covered. DCist reported that hosts who had already blocked off the dates around the inauguration, or taken their listings down entirely, would get no reimbursement. One host in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, whom DCist identified by first name only, had removed his listing for the week of the inauguration to avoid repeating an experience with guests the week before. DCist reported that acting early could cost him thousands of dollars. “By taking action myself, I’m being punished economically?” he asked.

A second Columbia Heights host, who had vetted his guest again and kept his inauguration booking, told DCist the decision was a fair compromise that would still hurt a lot of people, pointing to guests who could not find affordable lodging in D.C.

Vrbo and Marriott said they would keep their bookings

DCist reported on 13 January that Vrbo, the rental site owned by Expedia Group, had chosen not to cancel existing inauguration reservations. On 18 January the trade site Short Term Rentalz reported that Vrbo planned to maintain its Washington reservations over inauguration week despite Airbnb's stance and what it described as a fierce backlash from online users.

Vrbo's statement, as Short Term Rentalz printed it, said the company was encouraging hosts to cancel bookings in that period if they believed a guest intended to violate its policies. Expedia Group said in a separate statement, also carried by Short Term Rentalz, that it had begun a manual review of all Washington DC area bookings across all its lines of business, Vrbo included, and would keep evaluating new bookings through 24 January.

Marriott took a similar line. The hotel company said on 13 January that its hotels in the Washington, D.C. area would remain open through the inauguration, and told the Associated Press that it had many official participants of the inauguration staying with it and planned to uphold those reservations.

What it meant for hosts

For a host in the Washington area with an Airbnb booking for inauguration week, the announcement meant the stay was off and the decision was out of the host's hands. Airbnb said it would cancel the reservation, refund the guest in full and reimburse the host the money the booking would have earned, at the company's expense.

What a host could not learn from the announcement was which nights and which addresses were covered, because, by NPR's and DCist's accounts, it gave neither the dates nor the boundary. And a host who had already blocked the dates or taken a listing down was in a different position: DCist reported that those hosts would get no reimbursement.

A host who listed on Vrbo was in the opposite position. Vrbo had not canceled existing bookings, by DCist's and Short Term Rentalz's accounts, and it encouraged hosts to cancel a booking themselves if they believed the guest intended to break its policies. On Airbnb the platform took the decision and promised a payout. On Vrbo the booking stood unless the host, or Expedia after its own review, acted.

Sources

1. Airbnb Newsroom, Airbnb to Block and Cancel D.C. Reservations During Inauguration (13 January 2021).
2. Airbnb Newsroom, Airbnb Announces ‘Capitol Safety Plan’ for the Inauguration (11 January 2021).
3. Associated Press (published by PBS NewsHour), Airbnb to block, cancel D.C. bookings ahead of inauguration (13 January 2021).
4. NPR, Airbnb Is Canceling All Reservations In Metro D.C. During Inauguration Week (13 January 2021).
5. DCist, Airbnb Cancels All D.C.-Area Reservations Ahead Of Inauguration (13 January 2021).
6. TechCrunch, Airbnb cancels all bookings for DC during Inauguration week (13 January 2021).
7. CBS Baltimore (WJZ), Maryland, Virginia Governors, DC Mayor Urge Americans Not To Attend Inauguration (11 January 2021).
8. Short Term Rentalz, Vrbo to maintain DC reservations despite backlash (18 January 2021).