Car hire is the ugly duckling of online travel, waddling alongside trains, coaches and ferries.
Quite often the importance of car hire as an ancillary revenue opportunity is overlooked. Bobby Healy, chief technology officer for CarTrawler, told the EyeForTravel summit that car hire was the most lucrative of easyJet's ancillary revenues.
The key message from his presentation was that airlines need their car-hire partner to offer more than one car-hire firm.
Its experience from working with Hawaiian Airlines showed that the more car hire firms available, the more bookings are made. "You're leaving money on the table if you limit the number of providers you make available."
And interestingly, inserting the car hire option directly into the booking path didn't have any noticeable impact on drop-out rates. A sign that airline dot-com shoppers are used to upselling and don't penalise an airline for trying to do?
Sharon Lee, product development manager for Avis Europe, revealed some stats which suggested that car hire companies could sell ancillaries rather than just be sold as an ancillary.
She asked people who booked with Avis Europe online whether they would be interested in buying other products from the web site. More than 40% of them would consider buying flights, hotels or parking at the same time.
The figures were such as surprise that Lee's boss made her go and do the research again to double-check! The findings came back the same.
With around two-thirds of car hire sold supplier direct rather than through intermediaries, this could be a revenue opportunity for the car hire firms, or a partnership opportunity for third parties.
Lee also deserves a mention for raising a laugh in the room with what could be the industry's first-ever ancillary revenue and car hire gag.
"I wish we could charge our customers extra for putting luggage in the boot, but we can't!" she said.
Martin Cowen
Quite often the importance of car hire as an ancillary revenue opportunity is overlooked. Bobby Healy, chief technology officer for CarTrawler, told the EyeForTravel summit that car hire was the most lucrative of easyJet's ancillary revenues.
The key message from his presentation was that airlines need their car-hire partner to offer more than one car-hire firm.
Its experience from working with Hawaiian Airlines showed that the more car hire firms available, the more bookings are made. "You're leaving money on the table if you limit the number of providers you make available."
And interestingly, inserting the car hire option directly into the booking path didn't have any noticeable impact on drop-out rates. A sign that airline dot-com shoppers are used to upselling and don't penalise an airline for trying to do?
Sharon Lee, product development manager for Avis Europe, revealed some stats which suggested that car hire companies could sell ancillaries rather than just be sold as an ancillary.
She asked people who booked with Avis Europe online whether they would be interested in buying other products from the web site. More than 40% of them would consider buying flights, hotels or parking at the same time.
The figures were such as surprise that Lee's boss made her go and do the research again to double-check! The findings came back the same.
With around two-thirds of car hire sold supplier direct rather than through intermediaries, this could be a revenue opportunity for the car hire firms, or a partnership opportunity for third parties.
Lee also deserves a mention for raising a laugh in the room with what could be the industry's first-ever ancillary revenue and car hire gag.
"I wish we could charge our customers extra for putting luggage in the boot, but we can't!" she said.
Martin Cowen
Car Hire, like any other supplier component, should be an item bookable online. As part of a dynamic holiday booking the trade needs to offer better connections so that it can increase the range of holiday options available, without having to committ to allocations.
For example, Tour Operators who book dynamic packages can use car hire to replace costly transfers and fill a gap in the market. Skiweekends.com offer fly drive packages to the ski market. Added to Low Cost Carrier flights it gives them a great opportunity to sell financially protected holidays to an expanded market. Car Hire - sell more!
www.auto-europe.co.uk already successfully sells a number of ancillary products from airport parking to hotel rooms. Our customers find it useful to make their holiday reservations together in one place.