Articles
On or Off Airport and Why?
Firstly we have to understand the rise of brokers within the car hire marketplace to understand the prominence of off airport suppliers being heavily featured in a price sensitive environment. A broker is a series of brand names which have taken market share with the emergence of online booking through the web. Holiday Autos where the first major online car hire specific online booking portal launched in 1987 providing known suppliers with excellent volume without cheapening their direct traffic as Holiday Autos hid their brand names. As the market grew, more and more brokers emerged taking net rates from suppliers, promising them excellent traffic and playing each one against another in destinations to get even better rates as they grew. So how did off airport suppliers gain a foot hold.
As the market grew and customer became more web savvy, pricing became a major factor in comparing brokers with brokers. Suppliers were still much higher in price than the brokers and a new class of renter emerged in the marketplace. These were mainly leisure biased customers who had a focus on price, didn't really mind who the supplier was and would search the web looking looking for the cheapest rate.
This is where off airport providers would gain a foothold and gain huge growth. The brokers unable to lower price considerably due to the net rates provided looked for lower net rates and these could be provided by smaller off airport suppliers. They could offer low costs as they did not have to pay considerable on airport location rates charged by the airports, could ferry the customer to their locations off airport and in many cases have different fuel policies or terms and conditions to the established on airport worldwide suppliers.
With the brand name hidden and prices being driven down they gained huge traffic from brokers who were now doing very significant numbers. With more and more brokers emerging the off airport suppliers experienced significant growth. The launch and popularity of one stop cost comparison sites fueled the price sensitivity of the broker market pushing prices down further giving more prominence to the off airport supply base.
Customer service reviews, social networking and press exposure showed that customers where not always happy with shuttle buses and smaller suppliers with the customer service problems that entails which has brought us to where we are today.
Suppliers make a key point of showing they have on airport desks and cars but there is a range outside of this. Meet and Greet is popular where the customer is met by a member of staff and taken to the car inside the airport car parking. Phones are available where you ring the off airport facility and they meet and greet although the old shuttle bus and off airport transport are still a major factor in the world of brokers.
The car hire industry is not one product exactly the same across the marketplace. Fuel policies, insurance, additional drivers and many other parts of the experience differ from supplier to supplier and thus broker to broker. It is extremely important for the customer to check the terms and conditions when using a broker to ensure that the car and company are right for them.
So why don't brokers show the supplier in question? Suppliers will not allow the car hire broker to show their brand name until after the booking is completed for many reasons. One reason is it would hurt their direct traffic and thus have they would be giving a large amount of profit to the broker for traffic they would have got direct. Secondly it would make the brokers cost comparison engines in essence, giving them much more market share for a lot more of the cost of a standard cost comparison company. The more market share they get, more of the supplier core business they provide gives them much more power in gaining better net rates and more of the supplier profit base.
Through our engine on Car Hire .net we provide suppliers and brokers, integrating their XML and mapping it to the airport locations. We push hard for the brokers to give clear information on their supplier locations to ensure it provides details on where to pick up the car and if it is on airport or not. If you want a quick pick up and need to car to be on airport then compare both suppliers and brokers and be prepared to pay extra for an on airport hire car.
