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Car Hire Set to Become Easier Thanks to World's Largest Operator Opening its Platform to Independents
[March 21, 2018]

Car Hire Set to Become Easier Thanks to World's Largest Operator Opening its Platform to Independents


MANCHESTER, England, March 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Independent car rental operators with smaller fleets will now be able to grab a slice of the 8 million car rental bookings processed annually by the world's largest online car rental service.

In a first for the industry, Rentalcars.com, has launched a new web service - Marketplace - enabling smaller car rental businesses to feature in over 95 million global customer search results every year.

The Marketplace system was designed so that operators can maximise fleet utilisation and profitability; it offers them full control of fleet, rates, discounts and extras.

One of the first businesses to sign-up, Monjur Khan, Manager at Hummingbird Motors, said "Until now we've been unable to connect with brokers. Marketplace is easy to use and I'm able to keep more cars moving, more of the time. I now have reservations from customers that I simply could not get before I joined."

Initially launched in the UK, Marketplace is no also open for business in several European countries and has just become available in Italy, Portugal and Greece. Rentalcars.com have plans to roll out to 20 countries within the next 12 months, increasing the number of locations and vehicles available to customers.



The company plans to carefully manage the supply partners joining the service to ensure high quality customer service levels for customers match supply and demand.

While customers searching for car hire at airports and travel hubs are already well served, James Adams, Director of Product & Commercial  at Rentalcars.com explains the rationale for Marketplace: "Aside from airport and travel hub hire, we  also see millions of searches for other locations - such as city centre and out of town locations - where, historically, we've had little or no coverage through our current partnerships. Marketplace will allow us to match customer demand with operator supply, which we believe will have the twin benefit of growing the rental market while serving the needs of our customers."  


To find out more about the platform, visit http://www.rentalcars.com/marketplace/en

NOTES TO EDITORS 

About Rentalcars.com: 

  • Arranges car rental in over 53,000 locations across 160 countries and 42 languages
  • Processes 8 million bookings per year and currently has 3.5 million customer ratings making Rentalcars.com the world's biggest online car rental service
  • Works with supply partners to offer great prices on all car groups, including luxury cars, people carriers, minivans and automatic cars
  • Rideways is our ground transport solution, currently offering pre-booked airport transfers in over 850 airports around the globe
  • Operates a multilingual call centre open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year

Rentalcars.com is part of Booking Holdings [NASDAQ: PCLN], the world leader in online travel, which serves consumers and partners through six primary brands - Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable. For more information, visit http://www.bookingholdings.com.


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