Durban - Airbnb has suspended a Durban accommodation owner from the short-term homestays and experiences platform after a guest said he was told that the dog on the property was “racist”.
The Mercury reported last week that businessman Wandile Mthiyane said he was told by the owner that the rule was that he had to advise her when he would be outside as her “racist” dog, which bites black people, would also need to access the yard.
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The businessman, who founded a diversity, equity and inclusion start-up called the Anti Racist Hotdog after a “discriminatory” encounter at a beachfront restaurant, had booked the accommodation for a month to help him focus on his work.
Mthiyane, who feared for his safety, contacted Airbnb to be relocated. He was not satisfied with its response, and moved out.
An Airbnb spokesperson said the company, which is based in the US, was supporting Mthiyane following the incident and had issued a full refund for the stay.
“We take allegations of discrimination seriously, and we are supporting the guest and have suspended the host as we fully investigate,” said a spokesperson.
The spokesperson said that to use Airbnb, all hosts and guests must agree to its non-discrimination policy, which requires users to agree to treat each other with respect and without judgement or bias.
“Since 2016, Airbnb has removed more than 2.5 million people from the platform for declining to agree to this commitment, and we investigate and take action where we are made aware of behaviour that may violate our policies,” said the spokesperson.
The spokesperson said Airbnb took reports of discrimination seriously and had dedicated teams that specialised in handling such reports and providing support to users in the rare event that an issue of this nature happened.
“Under the Airbnb Open Doors initiative, if a guest anywhere in the world feels they have been discriminated against, we provide timely, personalised and hands-on support from a specially trained Airbnb employee to ensure the guest finds a place to stay,” said the spokesperson.
In a Twitter post on Sunday, Mthiyane, said: “After several back-and-forth exchanges and Black Twitter support, Airbnb put me in a hotel for three days and fully refunded me. The resolution project helped me cover the difference between financial transfer lag time and losses incurred during this process.”
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