Zipcar allows travellers to hire cars by the hour and which can be picked up at various locations. A buyer said: “We had very little desire
from our business travellers to hire the car by the hour. I think their biggest concern is the availability and where is the car going to be, relevant to the location of their meeting.” Avis’s Bower responded by talking
about Total Motion by Zipcar, a new technology it is rolling out. “Effectively, if you’re a large corporate and have 10-20 pool cars on site, we can put the technol- ogy from a Zipcar into those vehicles so people can go online and book the car out for the necessary hours. He added: “We have seen from pilot schemes in the US that the utilisation of the company’s pool fleet improved significantly, because traditionally there’s a clipboard where someone books a vehicle out for the whole day when it’s only needed for a couple of hours... this will help companies maximise that fleet and even flex it down, because you may not need that many pool cars.”
RENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES The discussion moved on to duty-of- care and the responsibility of car rental companies and buyers towards travellers collecting a car after a long-haul flight.
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
“Car ownership isn’t that sign of adulthood that it used to be – there’s a real shift in people’s relationship with them”
On this subject, one travel buyer
said: “We always advise our travellers against getting off a long-haul flight and driving, even if they’re flying business class.” Another
buyer added: “A lot
of the time my travellers prefer to drive themselves because it makes their life much easier, but it’s a per- sonal preference. So that’s where I’d like assistance from the supplier – so you’re aware of what people’s preferences are and whether they should be driving or not, and giving us some alternatives. “It’s about asking the right questions and offering options. As an example, they could tell the traveller: ‘We can have a car
to your hotel the next morning ready for you to drive.’” Avis’s Bower said: “It’s that conflict between what the traveller wants and what the buyer wants.” He pointed out that Avis could quite easily form a strategic alliance with a chauffeured car provider. “The traveller turns up at the desk, and one of our agents says: ‘If you’re feeling tired, we can arrange a chauffeured car, and have the rental car delivered to your hotel tomorrow morning.’” But he added: “A lot of travellers would choose this option, but then we’d have the buyer on the phone asking: ‘Why are you selling our travellers extras that are out of policy?’” A buyer agreed that it comes down
to “getting the right balance between the supplier, the traveller and the travel manager”. ¢ For more information on Editor’s Lunches and other BBT events, contact
events@panaceapublishing.com
BBT MAY/JUNE 2016
45
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