• by Masha Geller , September 2, 2003

Here's a relative success story and something to keep in mind for next summer's media plans: car rental websites. Nielsen//NetRatings reports that more than 4.5 million consumers logged on to car rental brand websites from home and work in July 2003. As the Labor Day weekend approached many travelers were looking to rental cars as an alternative way to travel during the last weekend of summer.

"The car rental market is an oft-forgotten success story in the online travel industry," said Patrick Thomas, senior Internet analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "The top brands are utilizing the Internet to provide reservation tools as well as offering consumers Internet-only prices, especially for leisure rentals."

According to Nielsen//NetRatings July 2003 data, Hertz led car rental brand sites attracting more than 1.7 million surfers from work and home, representing an increase of two percent from a year ago. Consumers can rent cars directly from these car rental brands as well as from online travel agencies. Avis garnered nearly 1.5 million unique visitors from home and work during the same month. The third most popular site among surfers was Enterprise Rent-A-Car; the rental car company's site attracted more than 1.2 million visitors in July, making it one of the fastest growing during the past year. Rounding out the top five, Budget and Thrifty Car Rental attracted 1.2 million and more than 800,000 surfers from home and work, respectively. Thrifty Car Rental experienced the highest year over year growth, attracting 53% more users in July 2003 than July 2002.

According to Nielsen//NetRatings' @Plan Fall 2003 release, 40.8 million consumers or 28% of Internet users, ages 18 and older, rented a car for travel over the past three months. Providing a benchmark for this audience size, the Nielsen//NetRatings' @Plan data shows that 74.4 million Internet users stayed in a hotel room in the same period and 64 million surfers traveled via airline.

"Car rental brands are currently receiving a large volume of reservations from online agencies, but they need to better understand and service visitors to their own websites," added Thomas. "Agencies are pushing vacation package deals, which have become very popular with online purchasers. Approximately 5 million consumers, in the U.S., purchased a vacation package online in the last 6 months up 32% from 3.7 million in the fall of 2002. The growing popularity of vacation packages represents a relatively untapped revenue stream for the car rental brand sites."