Airbnb bans all house parties worldwide

Airbnb has banned house parties as part of its efforts to comply with limits on gatherings in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Occupancy will be limited to 16 people, with a few exceptions for some venues.

Lockdown parties hosted in Airbnb properties led the UK's Bed and Breakfast Association to warn it was putting communities at risk.

The firm says it will pursue legal action if guests or hosts break the rules.

"Instituting a global ban on parties and events is in the best interest of public health," Airbnb said in a statement.

It added that 73% of its listings explicitly banned parties but some hosts allowed small parties such as baby showers or birthday celebrations.

Despite this, Airbnb acknowledged that some of its guests had chosen to "take bar and club behaviour to homes sometimes rented through our platforms".

"We think such conduct is incredibly irresponsible - we do not want that type of business, and anyone engaged in or allowing that behaviour does not belong on our platform," it said.

Airbnb had already begun to impose stricter limits, with a ban on party houses that created persistent neighbourhood nuisance.

To comply with social distancing rules, it had also removed the "event friendly" and "parties and events allowed" search filters.

And earlier this month, it prevented some under-25s in the UK from booking entire homes, following successful pilots in Canada and the US.

Like other travel firms, Airbnb has been hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic - although in July it said that customers had booked more than one million nights in a single day for the first time since March.

The San Francisco-based firm also announced this week that it planned to list on the stock market. In April it raised $2bn (£1.5bn) from investors, who valued it at $18bn.