E-commerce adoption of car rental companies in Turkey

In most economies, especially those of developing countries, tourism is one of the major factors influencing economic growth. With more than two billion worldwide users today, the Internet is one of the main marketing channels used by the tourism industry for promoting services and goods. Unlike conventional marketing tools, the Internet offers a two-way communication channel between suppliers and customers. Further, despite the car rental sector being relatively small, it has an underpinning function in the tourism industry. As in other sectors, e-commerce adoption by car rental companies is a must to survive in today's highly competitive tourism sector. To shed light on the e-commerce adoption levels of car rental companies operating in Turkey, a total of 89 car rental companies were evaluated by examining their Website features that are indicative of e-commerce adoption. The results obtained were then compared with the ecommerce adoption levels of African and U.S./Western European car rental companies. The benchmarking results showed that Turkish car rental companies have higher adoption levels than African companies with regard to almost every feature. In comparison with U.S./Western European car rentals, Turkish car rental companies scored equal or better in general. Copyright, American Society for Engineering Management, 2012.