Renting Cars and Trucks

Introduction

The travel and tourism industry not only impacts millions of individuals but also has the power to transform communities. Accounting for more than one-third of the global services trade, its growth rate facilitates the creation of more and better jobs requiring a diverse portfolio of skills and capabilities. With its continued resilience against socio-economic disturbances and other events, the travel and tourism industry contributed USD 8.9 trillion in total to the global GDP, accounting for nearly 10.3% of the total figure in 2019 (UNWTO,2020). This massive growth in the tourism industry also boosted the growth of other related industries, such as car rental. Nowadays, tourists prefer renting cars to explore a new place as it gives them the flexibility of planning their own itinerary without the fear of relying on public transport system. Car rental services allow customers to travel to their choice of places as per their convenience. Further, the rising disposable income has also established the trend of more people taking short trips. Rather than taking their own vehicle, customers prefer renting cars; airport rentals are the most common as tourists rent a car immediately after landing in a new country and keep the car with them for the whole duration of their stay or drop them off at convenient drop-off points (Shah, 2019).

Car rental industry can date back to the 20th century when two important people (Walter L. Jacobs and John D. Hertz) auspicated this business in American. After the development of nearly one century, the revenue of car rental business per year has been up to one hundred billion US dollars, and it has become a significant role for the world economic development. For Instance, in the United States, about one third new cars are sold by the channel of rental every year; similarly, two millions which account for fifteen percent of new cars are sold by the same way in Japan (Yang et al., 2008).

Transportation services have an important role in tourism, which requires some sort of movement to or from locations. Car rental agencies, along with many other factors, have played a vital role in increasing the ease of transportation by providing a service that allows tourists to easily travel within their destinations. It seems that the importance of travel facilities, especially car rental business, will gain more attention and unavoidably car rental owners will have to provide more extensive and better quality services to be able to compete with the growing needs and expectations of international tourists (Ekiz et al., 2009). As car rental companies provide substitutional products, price and service quality are critical success factors. This underlines the importance of optimizing car rental logistics in terms of the utilization of the fleet of cars while maintaining a high degree of customer satisfaction, and makes it possible to provide a kind of caring service (Fink & Reiners, 2006).

This study deals with the renting car and trucks from the perspectives of the conceptual. This chapter organized the car rental industry and history, car rental sector in the world (U.S., Europe, Asia - Pacific, Africa, and Middle East), truck rental, car rental industry after COVID-19 and conclusion.