Airbnbs For People With Disabilities: Hosts Tend To Reject These Travelers More, Study Says

Airbnb hosts are more likely to say no to people with disabilities compared to those who are not disabled, a new study suggests. The findings, which were first reported by the New York Times, comes after Airbnb faced complaints last year over racial bias from users.

Rutgers University researchers looked into how accessible Airbnb rentals were for people with disabilities. Researchers analyzed nearly 4,000 Airbnb lodging requests made between June and November 2016. The requests were broken down by four types of disabilities: blindness, cerebral palsy, dwarfism and spinal cord injuries.

Read: Uber Lawsuit: Company Fails To Accommodate People With Disabilities, Suit Says

Airbnb Disability Study Findings

Researchers found hosts were less likely to preapprove and more likely to completely reject requests from those with disabilities than those without.

The preapproval rate for travelers without disabilities was 75 percent. Meanwhile, the preapproval rate for travelers with dwarfism was 61 percent, those with blindness was 50 percent, persons with cerebral palsy was at 43 percent and the rate for those with a spinal cord injury was at 25 percent.

Researchers found the overall rate of rejections or non-responses was “significantly higher” for three disability categories compared to travelers with no disabilities. Those with no disabilities had a rejection rate of 16.8 percent, while the rate for those with blindness was two times higher (34.4 percent). People with cerebral palsy had a rejection rate of 40.7 percent, while those with a spinal cord injury had a rate of 59.8 percent and those with dwarfism had a rate of 20.1 percent.

Last September, Airbnb required all users to agree to a non-discrimination policy. However, researchers found host responses “did not vary significantly” after the rule was introduced.

There were some hosts that were understanding and worked to accommodate guests, but many others didn’t.

“While many Airbnb hosts expressed great sympathy and willingness to consider accommodating guests with disabilities, the overall results indicate that this new institutional form creates substantial challenges in ensuring equal access for people with disabilities,” the study said.

Airbnb Response

Airbnb said last month it was working with the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers (CFILC) to “develop detailed mobility options that will empower hosts to more accurately describe accessibility features at their listings, and empower guests to more easily filter and find listings with these features.” The company said it was testing the features and planned to release them this summer.

“Airbnb has been making a number of improvements that will make our community more open and more accessible to everyone,” the company said in a post. “The work we’ve done so far is just a start. We have more to do and we wanted to provide an update on our current efforts and plans for the future.”

Airbnb isn’t the only company that has been criticized for its accommodation of people with disabilities. Uber was recently hit with a lawsuit over failing to make its services more accessible to those with disabilities. The plaintiffs argued the company violated Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the California Disabled Persons Act and California’s unfair competition law.