“Our new whitelabel app is a promise for a better future in car rental,” says Martin Kallasmaa, Car Rental Gateway’s Commercial Director. “It makes renting a car contactless and gives customers the freedom to go anywhere they need to without any hassle. This is exactly the solution that the market needs right now—flexible, efficient, and smart. It has every potential to bring exponential growth and revenue for all integrated parties.”

Although there has been a rapid shift towards digitisation across the different industries, the core essence of the car rental service has remained the same for decades. This comfortably settled business landscape has provided very little incentive for change. Many rental operators are using the same processes they have been using for the last 40 years. That is to say until now.

COVID-19 has brought with it travel bans and the necessity to avoid human contact. This has made crowded rental desks and long queues disappear but the possibility to have access to rental cars is also quite limited. This is due to the fact that the majority of rental companies do not have any or have a limited number of smart rental offers that ensure contactless rental process.

While more enthusiastic rental providers have started developing their own apps and working on keyless offers, these changes help overcome some of the shortages present in the industry right now, but also give rise to some new challenges. Let’s say that you are a frequent traveller who visits different locations. To be able to book a car, you should have full knowledge of all global and regional rental providers out there and having this knowledge download each and every provider’s application to your phone. Even worse, you still need to operate between these apps to get the booking that would best suit your needs.

The abundance of available rental applications is due to the fact that rental companies are holding onto their identities and branding. That is understandable as they have worked hard to build their image. At the same time, they need access to the global markets—this is where the comparison and booking sites come in. Those sites have the capability to offer more language and personalisation options in a scale unthinkable to a single car rental provider. Car Rental Gateway’s whitelabel app can consolidate the operators on the market into a unified customised service line. This means that the customers will be dealing with only one contact throughout their rental journey and will have a dedicated, real live person at their service. While car rental brokers with their e-commerce competencies would be able to take care of customer service and the whole rental journey, the car rental operators could focus on their area of expertise—a well maintained rental fleet.

The team behind Car Rental Gateway has been steering e-commerce solutions in car rental distribution software since 2001. Their experience lies in bringing together mobility providers and travel distributors, including online travel agents, comparison sites, airlines, and car rental brokers. They are considered to be one of the leading global technology providers in the industry—they have built the core platform for Rentalcars.com, the biggest online broker in the market, and provide Expedia with unified data and connectivity with all major car rental operators available.