Discrimination by Airbnb hosts ‘commonplace’
Monday, 14 Dec, 2015
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A study conducted by Harvard Business School appears to suggest people with African-American sounding names face some discrimination when trying to book a room on Airbnb.
Researchers set up dummy accounts of prospective Airbnb customers using names typically perceived as either distinctly black or white.
Researchers then sent out more than 6,000 messages in July this year to hosts in Washington DC, Baltimore, St Louis, Los Angeles and Dallas seeking rooms.
"We found that requests from guests with distinctively African-American names are roughly 16% less likely to be accepted than identical guests with distinctively white names. The difference persists whether the host is African-American or white, male or female," the study said.
"While information can facilitate transactions, it also facilitates discrimination. Clearly, the manager of a Holiday Inn cannot examine names of potential guests and reject them based on race. Yet, this is commonplace on Airbnb."
The study also found hosts who discriminate often lose out financially.
"Hosts who reject African-American guests are able to find a replacement guest only 35% of the time," it wrote.
Airbnb said its platform is not unique to racial profiling but still, ‘bias and discrimination are significant challenges.’
"We are in touch with the authors of this study and we look forward to a continuing dialogue with them", the company said in its statement.
TravelMole Editorial Team
Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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