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Renting Cars and Trucks

Chapter · January 2021

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-7287-0.ch005

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 93

Chapter 5
Renting Cars and Trucks
Bayram Akay
Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, Turkey

ABSTRACT
Tourism is a fragmented and information-oriented sector covering tour operators,
travel agencies, hotel sales representatives, associations, meeting offices,
transportation, car rental, airlines, cruise, souvenirs, restaurants, hotels/motels, and
entertainment. The car rental sector, which is an important part of the tourism sector,
is growing day by day, and the number of customers is increasing rapidly. The success
of the car rental sector, which produces support services within the growing tourism
sector, is considered very important for the development of tourism. The COVID-19
pandemic has engulfed the globe and has already had an enormous impact on life
as we once knew it. With airplanes grounded, millions of people in quarantine, and
hundreds of travel bans in place, COVID-19 has brought the global tourism industry
to a grinding halt along with the rental industry. The study determines the current
situation of the car rental sector and presents some suggestions.

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

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-7287-0.ch005

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 Renting Cars and Trucks

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.

The Car Rental Industry and History

Car rental is the hiring of a motor vehicle from one party to another party. Rentals
are generally made on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis (Akay, 2015). The
car rental sector provides billions of dollars of income to the economy of many
countries. In the US with 19.272 car hire locations, more than 2.2 million cars

94
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