Skift Take
Airbnb's new cancellation policy will cover hurricanes — if they trigger government travel bans. But if there is a flu warning in the U.S., a malaria emergency in Thailand, or a Covid-19 outbreak, these situations would not be covered.
Airbnb will be introducing a new cancellation policy on June 6 for weather-related events and government travel restrictions.
The "Major Disruptive Events Policy" would enable guests to cancel reservations and receive refunds when a hurricane or natural disaster triggers government travel restrictions or leads to mass outages of utilities, Airbnb said Thursday.
These guest cancellations would be valid even if the hosts' cancellation policies stated otherwise, according to Airbnb.
"Now, the policy will explicitly apply to foreseeable weather events, like a hurricane during hurricane season, that result in another covered event happening, like a gover