TORRANCE, Calif. -- For the first time in more than a decade, all three segments of the car rental industry --– corporate, franchisees and independents --– will gather together for a trade show. The Car Rental Show is scheduled for Sept. 12-14 at the Las Vegas Hilton.
Chuck Fallon, executive vice president of revenue generation for Cendant Car Rental Group, will be the show's keynote speaker.
Fallon's presentation, scheduled for 9 to 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 13, will focus on creating brand loyalty.
Car Rental Show organizers also announced the addition of two prominent speakers with expertise in technology: Cendant Car Rental Group Vice President of Technology John Turato and Farelogix President and CEO James K. Davidson.
Turato is responsible for technology strategy, architecture, R&D, infrastructure, data security and field engineering at Cendant Car Rental Group. He also serves as chairman of the OpenTravel Alliance (OTA), a travel trade group dedicated to enabling e-commerce over the Internet.
Turato's presentation is titled, "Web Services --- How OTA Enables and Suppliers Deliver." Cendant Car Rental Group has used its Web services expertise to create new channels for rental reservations.
Davidson heads Farelogix, which seamlessly provides content from traditional travel distribution sources (all four global distribution systems), emerging supplier direct connections, and Web-only inventory. Davidson's previous experience includes serving as president and CEO of Amadeus Global Travel, North America (Amadeus GDS). His Car Rental Show presentation will address the future role of the global distribution systems and the emerging direct-connect alternatives.
Additional sessions will explore technology solutions for the toll road/parking ticket dilemmas, on-lot and off-lot fleet management (RFID and GPS solutions), vehicle remarketing and brand marketing via the Web.
Another focus of the convention will be the industry's government relations. Industry leaders are hopeful that the car rental industry can build on momentum from the successful lobbying effort to end vicarious liability.
Robert Muhs, vice president of government affairs for Cendant Car Rental Group, will give a presentation on recent industry successes in state and federal lobbying. Muhs was actively involved in the industry's effort to end vicarious liability through the federal highway bill. Ray Wagner, vice president of legislative affairs for Enterprise Rent-A-Car, will give a presentation titled, "Stop the Rental Car Taxation Epidemic."
A number of educational sessions will focus on industry best practices, tackling topics such as counter sales, collecting loss-of-use, fleet planning for the local market, and tax-saving measures. Show highlights will also include a panel of vehicle remarketing experts offering forecasts on used vehicle residual values and trends.
The Car Rental Show is produced by Bobit Business Media, parent company of Auto Rental News. In previous years, the Association for Car and Truck Rental Independents and Franchisees (ACTIF) coproduced the event with Bobit, with ACTIF responsible for organizing the educational session content. As a result, session content was geared solely for franchisees and independents.
While many sessions this year are still designed for independents and franchisees, others are geared for major corporate RACs.
For more information, visit www.carrentalshow.com.
