Friday October 31, 2003

Car Rental Express' average rental length and average daily dollar value beats Avis.

According to Auto Rental News, http://www.fleet-central.com/arn/bnews.cfm?rank=817:

Avis' average rental is 3.77 days, with a daily value of $41.21.
Car Rental Express' average rental is 4.86 days with a daily value of $44.23.

Avis average rental is $155.36
CRX average rental is $214.95

It pays to get CRX reservations.

New ‘Pay for Performance’ revenue model for http://www.carrentalexpress.com

Car Rental Express.com Inc has been live on the Internet for over 3 years. We continually strive to bring you quality traffic and with the traffic, reservations. The focus of our marketing has changed from simply ‘pay per listing’ to include as many different marketing tactics as are practical.

Eight months ago we changed the way we marketed http://www.carrentalexpress.com, to increase the number of reservations it received. This marketing includes search engine optimization of specific and useful key words and phrases for many geographic and demographic markets.  So far we have created over 1300 pages of relevant content, searched out and linked to some 500 back links, completely revamped and improved the design and navigability of the site and signed agreements with other travel sites.  They will use our network of agencies as their supply of rental cars. Our marketing plans are not static and will continue to expand and change as new and more effective marketing methods are developed.

To correspond with our aggressive marketing we are changing the revenue model on the site. Up to now client agencies paid for system usage on the site whether or not the usage resulted in a reservation. As of December 1, 2003 all car rental agencies listed on Car Rental Express will pay only for reservations. There will be no charge for listing on http://www.carrentalexpress.com unless and until we produce reservations.

The charge for reservations will be US $10.50 for all reservations. Cancelled reservations are not charged, but no-shows are. 

We encourage all agencies to use our automatic email reservation reconfirmation program to reduce the number of no shows. On the reconfirmation email the renter has the opportunity to cancel, thus saving the rental agency the cost of a no show reservation.

The average length of a reservation made on http://www.carrentalexpress.com between May, 2002 and October, 2003 was 4.86 days and the average value of these reservations between the same dates was $214.95. This is time and mileage only. We have used these averages in computing cost savings to you when using our site.

There are 2 types of partner sites that CRX is aligning with to bring more Internet reservations to our client agencies on http://www.carrentalexpress.com.

Non-Commissionable Reservations

• Affiliate sites to which Car Rental Express pays a specific per reservation fee.  Link Share is such a program where we will pay out in the range of US $3.00 - $5.00 per reservation originating on a third party site. There is no commission payable on this type of reservation, but we (Car Rental Express) will pay out in a revenue share model.

With the affiliate sites, you need not sign up for any special programs. We take care of all the “paper” and are responsible for all payments to these affiliates. We will continue to pursue opportunities to increase the volume of non-commissionable reservations to bring down your over all cost of reservations.

Travel Agents and Commissionable Web Sites

• These are travel agencies using CRX and Internet sites that supply reservations and require a commission to be paid on completed rentals, normally on time and mileage only. This leaves all other revenue sources associated with the rental free of any commission. These reservations are very similar to GDS reservations except that with CRX the transaction fee is US $10.50 as opposed to the GDS fixed fees which usually are in the range of US $10.00 - $12.00.

* Time and mileage only, does not include taxes, insurance or daily extras

** Calculated at 10% where applicable (this is standard for a Travel Website or Travel Agent Reservation)

*** Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) provide reservations through channels such as Orbitz.com, Expedia.com, Travel Agent software, and others.

There is no time commitment or up front cost required to participate in the Travel Agent program. But you do need to sign up. If you do not opt in, your agency will not be able to participate with us in this vast resource. Simply go to your administrative work station, and click on Travel Agents to sign up. You are able to opt in or out as you wish.

Reservations on http://www.carrentalexpress.com are quality reservations. Both the renter and the agency have all that is necessary on our site to permit and encourage reservations without questions back and forth.  The Express Rental Guide allows each rental agency to modify the information that is supplied to the renter. As well, each agency can customize the required items and information that it needs to receive from the renter. Our systems allow you this flexibility because being an independent agency means just that, each requires different information to suit its own particular needs.

If you are not convinced that being cooperative with travel agents is worthwhile, click on the following link and see what other car rental agents on CRX are doing. http://www.carrentalexpress.com/tools/ta_quick_directory.php

Do These Changes Affect Agencies’ Own Website Charges?

NO. Client agents using the Express Reservation Guide on their proprietary web sites will continue with the same revenue model as it relates to these proprietary sites. That is, paying a base rate, a scaleable flat rate for system usage, and any agreed upon monthly module charges.

System usage on http://www.carrentalexpress.com will NOT be included in the total system usage invoiced for the use of the ERG on the proprietary site.

Car Rental Express is continually marketing http://www.carrentalexpress.com to any and all potential sources of traffic and reservations.  We are negotiating service agreements with a number of travel sites that are using http://www.carrentalexpress.com as a source of inventory.

This is a situation where we all win.

There is no charge for being on http://www.carrentalexpress.com unless there is a reservation. And the travel sites with which we associate only get paid after they produce.

If you are not already signed up as paying travel agent commissions, the time to do so is NOW, as there are certain travel sites that want only one representative per city. Time is definitely of the essence.

We welcome any questions or concerns and can be reached at 1-888-557-8188 or emailed at stan@carrentalexpress.com