Introduction
The aim of the study on the compliance of the car rental intermediaries online services with the requirements of the EU legislation was to check if the main car rental intermediaries used by European consumers comply with EU consumer protection legislation.
The study covered intermediary websites in the EU as well as in Iceland, Norway and the UK.
The study had three specific objectives:
- to depict a comprehensive landscape of the main car rental intermediary websites that target EU-consumers;
- to map the relationship between car rental intermediaries and airlines and main booking platforms and, if possible, provide more information on this relationship;
- to check the compliance of the websites found under objective 1 with EU consumer protection legislation, including a check of the Terms and Conditions of the websites in different EU languages.
The findings of the study were used to draw conclusions on the degree of compliance and the resulting risks for European consumers, as well as to develop a set of recommendations that can help leading to sector-wide compliance with the legislative framework. These recommendations expand on earlier commitments made by car rental companies to intermediaries to achieve a common standard.
Overall, the study identified 547 car rental intermediary websites operating in Europe. This number includes dedicated car rental intermediaries, offering only car rental services, but also airlines and general booking sites. More than half of the websites (56%) have a national scope while 16% have a regional scope and 28% have an international scope.
Among these websites, the study identified four different types of business models: (1) booking intermediaries, that conduct the booking themselves; (2) comparison intermediaries, that redirect for the booking to another website; (3) hybrids, that combine elements of booking and comparison intermediaries; and (4) embedment/partnership models, that outsource the car rental services to a third party embedded within their website.
The compliance check carried out in a mystery shopping exercises found a variety of issues at a number of websites. Please consult the final report or the executive summary for further information on these various compliance issues.