Tourists book the car before they pack the suitcase
Most rentals in the Canary Islands are booked weeks before the flight, often in the evening and from a phone. The customer compares three or four offers and picks the one where they understand fastest what they get and what they pay. If your website ends with a phone number or a "contact us" form, you lose to the comparison site, not on price but on convenience.
Your own booking flow does not have to be complicated. It just has to answer the customer's questions in the order they ask them.
Step 1: dates, pickup and return location
The first screen is dates and place: TFS or TFN airport, a hotel in Costa Adeje, an office in Puerto de la Cruz. Each location can have its own surcharge and opening hours, so the system should calculate them itself instead of relying on manual quotes.
Collect the flight number right away. A delayed plane from Warsaw pushes pickup back by an hour, and a team that knows about it is not waiting blindly in the car park.
Step 2: car classes instead of licence plates
Customers do not look for "the Ford Fiesta with plate 1234 ABC". They look for a class: economy, compact, SUV, seven-seater, convertible. A good page shows:
- a photo and an example model ("or similar"),
- number of passengers and suitcases,
- transmission type and air conditioning,
- mileage limit or unlimited mileage,
- the total price for the selected period, not "from €9 a day".
Underneath, the system assigns the specific vehicle at handover. You get fleet flexibility and the customer gets a simple offer. That availability logic is covered by the booking system for car rental, and its back office is the admin panel for car rental.
Step 3: extras that raise the average bill
This is where car rental companies earn the most, and where they most often forget about it. Extras work when they appear in the form rather than being negotiated at the counter:
- child seat and booster,
- additional driver,
- extended insurance with no excess,
- sat nav or wifi hotspot,
- full tank at the start.
Each can be charged per day or once, and the system adds the amount to the summary. The customer sees what they pay for, and you are not haggling over surcharges at 7 a.m. after a night flight.
Step 4: deposit, security hold and confirmation
A booking without payment is a booking that may not show up. A sensible setup is a deposit when ordering and a separate security hold at pickup. Both amounts must be clearly separated so nobody asks a month later where their money is. The mechanics are covered by the online payments and deposits feature.
After payment, the customer gets an automatic confirmation with the required documents (driving licence, ID or passport), pickup time and directions. Message automation also sends a reminder the day before, which cuts down on "where do I go?" calls.
What handing commission to comparison sites costs
Intermediary commissions in car rental can be high, and a customer from a comparison site rarely comes back directly. If tens of thousands of euros a year pass through them, the margin difference is noticeable. You can run a rough estimate in the commission calculator: it was built with accommodation in mind, but it works the same for any percentage commission.
The point is not to drop comparison sites. It is that a customer who already knows you should not have to go through them.
What to check before you start
Before launching your own bookings, decide:
- whether availability is counted per class or per specific car,
- hours and surcharges for each pickup point,
- which extras you sell and how they are billed,
- whether the deposit is refundable and until when,
- which languages the form will work in: Polish, Spanish and English at once.
The last point is often skipped, and in tourism it decides conversion. Packages and scope are in the pricing.
Start with one class and one pickup point
You do not need to move the whole fleet at once. Launch booking for your most popular class and one pickup point, see how customers use the form, then add more.
Do you run a car rental in Tenerife, Gran Canaria or Fuerteventura and want to sell directly? Get in touch: we will go through your classes, extras and pickup points and I will suggest the simplest possible start.
