AN ARTICLE in this week's Economist looks at the rental-car industry. It seems that companies that relied heavily on custom from business travellers are having to look elsewhere for trade, since the recession pared many travel budgets, and these have not recovered along with the wider economy.
Even if rental companies can capture more holiday drivers, they will struggle to grow even modestly in the next few years. IbisWorld, a research firm, thinks the industry's total revenue will not return to its 2008 size of $28 billion until at least 2015. The business has already consolidated dramatically. In 1999 there were nine national car-rental companies in America; by 2009 there were just four, including Dollar Thrifty [currently the subject of takeover bids from Hertz and Avis Budget]. To increase revenues, car-hire firms will instead try to develop new business lines. They have focused more on their relationships with insurance companies, providing cars temporarily to people whose own have been stolen or damaged.
One avenue being pursued by a number of companies is short-term rentals, allowing customers to hire cars for as little as one hour. Read the whole piece.
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I rented a car through Trans Canada car rental service for a two-week extend recently, and had an excellent experience .This is the best economy car rentals in Toronto
the better idea is to park cars for hire near those body shops and car dealers so members can jump in them and go instead of waiting on enterprise to pick them up, drive them back to their office, spend a lot of time behind the pc and trying to sell you insurance, and then finally going.
It would be nice when hiring a car to actually pay more for the car hire than for insurance. On a visit to the US last year, insurance was about 60% of the bill. If I were 19 years old and an idiot driver, I might understand, but I am 61 and have an umblemished driving record in Oceania, Asia, Europe and Africa.
The largest rental car company in the US is Enterprise. They built their business on relationships with auto body shops and new car dealers. They have dominated that market for many years. It is a bit late for Hertz and Avis to try to obtain market share from Enterprise without huge expense which they probably could not afford. Perhaps you have a better idea?