Summer Travelers Continue to Embrace Luxury
With summer travel plans in full swing, Turo, the travel marketplace for car sharing, has revealed a consumer survey, finding evolving tastes and new consumer behaviors emerging amid tightening budgets.
Despite financial concerns, eager travelers are finding a way to make vacations come to life, and as seen during the pandemic many are preferring to drive to get to their destination. At the end of May, Turo’s data shows its members had already booked trips in the summer months (June 1 to Aug. 31) in more than 2,700 cities and towns. Notably topping the list of destinations were New York City, Boston, and Long Beach and Santa Ana, California.
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Outside of the U.S., top destinations included Montreal and Halifax in Canada and Edinburgh, Westminster and Longford in the U.K.
As Americans look for cars to rent to travel, Turo’s research finds that top searched for models include trending and recently refreshed models as well as large family vehicles. Electric vehicles also continue to be popular with travelers with 139 percent increase in the use of “electric” filters for 2023 summer trips. Travelers in California, Hawaii, Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Florida made up the highest number of electric vehicle bookings, citing the desire to “reduce their carbon footprint while traveling to popular destinations.”
“Interest in electric vehicles hit a record high last year, and Turo expects that interest to continue to grow,” said Albert Mangahas, chief data officer at Turo. “Whether travelers are starting to overcome ‘range anxiety’ or are enticed by the ballooning variety of new electric models, the numbers say they’re increasingly comfortable jumping into an EV.”
At the same time, Turo’s report finds travelers are splurging more on cars that are more luxurious and exclusive. The company’s search tool has seen a 21 percent increase in the use of its “deluxe” and “super deluxe” filters for trips booked for the summer months. Convenience is also a top priority for summer travelers, who are increasingly looking for “extras” like vehicle delivery. Further, the company encourages its hosts to offer extras as an optional perk which has expanded to include things like national park passes, fully equipped coolers, surfboards, camping tents, fishing rods and more.
Other key filters include “family friendly,” which has seen a 162 percent increase on Turo’s site and “child seat” increasing 88 percent.
Mangahas claimed that as car travel has gained in popularity over the last few years, consumers have learned and are now demanding more from their travel and car booking experiences. “Travelers were burned by traditional car rental over the last two years due to car shortages, and they are flocking to peer-to-peer car sharing companies like Turo, who have more stable supply and impressive car options,” he contended.
Aiming to further its mission of revolutionizing the travel industry, Turo has launched a GPT-4 plugin designed to enhance its booking experience for consumers by enabling them to use voice commands to find the perfect vehicle. The company noted it is the first rental platform to work with OpenAI and believes the technology will be key in taking into consideration a number of factors that are important to its consumer.
“Generative AI and ChatGPT have quickly gone mainstream over the past few months, revolutionizing a wide range of industries and greatly impacting our daily lives in countless ways,” Mangahas said. “However, one sector that has been historically slower in adapting to new technologies is travel and transportation. At Turo, we are customer-obsessed and aim to shake up these antiquated industries by taking a technology-forward approach so when we were given the opportunity to leverage this powerful technology to create an even more convenient and seamless car booking experience, our team jumped on it.”
With Turo’s GPT-4 plugin ChatGPT Plus subscribers who have the Turo GPT-4 plugin enabled can type in vacation details and needs (including desired vehicle type, location and price) and the tool will pull personalized car recommendations from Turo’s selection. Mangahas told WWD that the feedback about the technology has been positive and speaks to the company’s ongoing commitment to “leading the charge by continuing to experiment with different ways that it can augment and advance the platform.”
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