National Car Rental will have a worldwide self booking tool available for corporate clients by the end of the year, Ron Santiago, vp international sales and marketing, said.
“We have been working on our own self booking tools and have them in three domestic markets. Now we are investing in a corporate self booking tool which will work on a worldwide basis.
“By the fourth quarter of 2005 National will have its self booking tool up and running. It will be hosted here but people will be able to book anywhere where National has a presence,” he said.
The tool will be available on a dedicated website for corporate customers who will gain entry through a user ID. Corporates will also be able to check their “rental history” on this site.
Mr Santiago said the next step after that would be to provide corporates coming onto the site with their MI.
“They get it today via e-mail but this would be a change for them to be able to pull it from the site rather than us pushing it to them. We shall also be introducing e-billing. This is already available in the UK, Germany, France and Italy but we are developing it so that we can do it on a regular and wider basis,” he said.
The service is expected to be available in Belgium, the Netherlands ands Luxembourg soon.
National, which has nearly 3,200 locations in 83 countries, had also put together a data warehouse, Mr Santiago said, to capture all data and make it available to customers.
“That is set up but we need to get the functionality right for every country in the world where National is. This will be done by the second quarter of 2006,” he said.
He said the developments were part of National's plans to keep ahead. “We were the first to have e-billing in the UK and Germany and the first to have MI available online.
“I think we are certainly not looking just to catch up. National wants to be in the lead,” he said.