Avis CEO on revamped mobile app, industry competition
While ride-sharing and car-hailing companies are revving up their presence in the U.S., the traditional car rental industry is still growing.
Companies like Avis Budget Group are hoping new technology -- including their latest Avis Now mobile app -- will attract more customers.
"What we did was we went out and talked to our customers and we also talked to tech-savvy travelers and asked them to design for us the future state rental car experience that they really wanted," Avis CEO Larry De Shon said Tuesday on "CBS This Morning."
The company re-engineered its app to streamline the rental process from reservation to car return, so the customer can have more control of the rental experience through their mobile devices.
According to Auto Rental News, the 2015 U.S. car rental market drew in $27.1 billion in revenue, an increase of 4.2 percent from the year before.
While some might wonder whether the influx of transportation services like Uber or Lyft would hurt rental companies' bottom line, De Shon said it has minimal impact.
"Our customers on average rent our cars for four days and drive 450 miles, so that's a very different kind of use case versus car hailing," he said. "The types of transactions that we have where they're under 50 miles or one-day rentals are so small in our total transactions... It doesn't really impact us that much."
Avis Budget Group also owns Zipcar, the largest car-sharing company in the world, so De Shon said they can cater to consumers' differing needs.
"Anytime consumers can find more solutions for mobility needs, it's good for us," he said. "So if they have a short-term need like a 15 minute rental, and car hailing meets their needs, then fine. If they need it for a few hours and a Zipcar meets their needs, that's great. And if they need it for multiple days then the rental cars will meet their needs. So I think you're going to find more and more consumers with all these mobility solutions willing to give up their second car or maybe even their primary car, and that's good for our company."