Airbnb announced on Tuesday that there is a “significant difference” in the booking success rate for users perceived to be White versus those perceived to be Black. The findings follow the company’s launch of an initiative to identify and address race-based discrimination on its platform.
While all users had their reservations confirmed by hosts more than 90% of the time in 2021, Airbnb said it discovered a significant gap in user experiences based on their apparent racial identity during that time. According to the company, users perceived to be White had a booking success rate of 94.1%, while users perceived to be Black had a success rate of 91.4%.
“It’s a significant difference, and it’s unacceptable,” Airbnb’s director of community partner programs and engagement, Janaye Ingram, told CNN. “We obviously are not okay with it, and we are working hard to address it.”
The findings are part of Project Lighthouse, a 2020 initiative launched by Airbnb to collect data on racial disparities in its service. Color of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization, collaborated on the project, as did other national privacy and civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
Airbnb’s efforts to address racial disparities on its platform come after the company has been chastised on the subject on numerous occasions. According to a 2015 Harvard study, Airbnb hosts were less likely to rent to guests with African-American names. The following year, Airbnb was hit with a lawsuit alleging discriminatory housing practices. (The suit was later dismissed by a federal judge.) In 2019, the company settled a lawsuit filed by several Black women in Oregon who claimed they were discriminated against because of their race.
According to the company, information gathered through the Project Lighthouse initiative is being used to inform the company’s approach to bookings and reviews in an effort to reduce racial discrimination against prospective guests.
“What you don’t measure, you can’t fix,” Ingram said.
According to the company, Airbnb has taken a number of steps in recent years to address concerns about racial disparities on its platform, including removing guests’ profile pictures prior to booking, expanding eligibility for the “Instant Book” feature that bypasses host approval, auditing booking rejections, and making it easier for all guests to receive reviews.
Airbnb announced on Tuesday that Project Lighthouse revealed another potential issue that needs to be addressed: guests with more reviews have higher booking success rates than those without, and guests perceived to be White or Asian have more reviews than others. In response, Airbnb intends to make it easier for all travelers to leave a review, an effort that it hopes will have a significant impact on the Black and Latino or Hispanic communities.
The findings were released on Tuesday following two racial audits conducted by Airbnb in 2016 and 2019.
“Racial audits work as long as corporations make the necessary changes to address what they uncover,” Rashad Robinson, president of Color Of Change, said. “Six years after its first racial audit, and two years after Color Of Change negotiated Project Lighthouse, Airbnb is now a leading example of what it looks like to back up racial justice rhetoric with policies, practices, and personnel that can prevent rampant racial discrimination.”
