arxivcs.LG2026-07-14
Proximity Features: Privacy-Compliant Cold-Start Personalization at Airbnb
Wei Jiang, Bin Xu, Hui Gao, Bharathi Thangamani, Weiwei Guo, Sundar Srinivasavaradhan, et al.
Personalization in two-sided marketplaces relies heavily on user-level features, yet for platforms with infrequent, high-consideration purchases, a large fraction of users lack sufficient history for effective recommendation, spanning both paid and organic channels. At Airbnb, a…