What Is Turo?: The Airbnb Of Cars Defined In 3 Big Ways

What is Turo?: The Airbnb of cars

Traditionally when you needed to rent a car you would show up to a front desk of a rental car agency and rent whatever they had available at the time. Since then, the car rental industry has evolved with the addition of companies like Turo. But what is Turo and how does Turo differ from a traditional car rental agency?

To understand not only what is Turo, but also what Turo did when the company entered the rental market. Let’s take a look at a similar company you might be familiar with; Airbnb.

When Airbnb started its platform back in 2008, it introduced a low cost way for tourists to find affordable lodging and for hosts to make money by renting out their couch and providing accommodations. Peer to peer renting for the average traveler has only begun. With Airbnb revenue reaching over 3 billion dollars the platform has seen great success and growth.

Similar to Airbnb, Turo started in 2010 as a peer-peer car-sharing company in San Francisco. The company allows car owners to rent out their vehicles through its online and mobile platforms. Because Turo offers a quick and straightforward way to rent cars in supported markets, the service has quickly become one of the largest in the car-sharing industry. Turo is in 7,500 + cities in the US, Canada, and the UK and offers 1,300 + makes and models for you to pick from.

Turo is causing the same disruption to the car rental industry, as Airbnb did to the hospitality industry. Introducing more options to the consumer and providing a marketplace for small businesses to prosper.

What does renting through Turo look like?

If you want to rent through Turo there are many vehicle options available. You simply select the city you need a rental in and a list of options will populate. When the list pops up you can filter by price point, date available, top-rated vehicles, and even luxury options.

Turo allows you to choose where the vehicle is located for pick up and even offers some cars with a delivery service. If you are flying into an airport you can choose cars located there, or have one delivered to a location instead. Some of these services rely on the host and what they are willing to offer.

Hosting On Turo

If you are interested in making extra money, creating a side hustle, or have an extra car to use, Turo is the best choice. Turo provides entrepreneurs a platform to build a small, successful portfolio of cars to share on Turo’s marketplace. Learn how to increase your Turo bookings.

You can start with a car that you already own and do it on your time. With this flexibility, Turo can be a side hustle all the way to a full-time job. The average yearly earnings of hosts on Turo for 1 car is $10,516 and the average for 3 cars is $31,547. We’ve created two calculators to better help estimate your potential earnings both by operating your own fleet & passively generating income from your fleet.

The Nitty-Gritty

When you sign up to become a host and rent your vehicle on Turo, you should consider a few solutions and options when running your Turo Business. Guided By AURA has a few hot topics below to get you started.

Offered Services
You’ll want to keep in mind the services you offer may make your listing more or less attractive to consumers on Turo’s platform. If the majority of consumers are searching for a service you don’t currently offer, it’s likely your listing will get less attention, and thus less bookings.

Vehicle Availability
Likewise as the services you offer, when your vehicle is available for rent can help the success of your listing and increase your annual earnings. However, if your vehicle is rarely listed you may expect lower income and slower growth overall.

Customer Service
Being a host means you have responsibilities to your customers, especially if you want a good host rating (4 Star Rating & above) and maintain your eligibility to host on Turo’s platform. Consistent bad reviews from customers don’t only threaten your presence on Turo’s platform, but also the likelihood of future customers booking from you or any of your vehicles.

Communication to your renters is key. Providing your Turo customers with detailed information about their trip, vehicle information, and rental expectations provides a better customer experience.

Customer’s will also reach out to you on their time, not yours. This could mean a renter is asking questions about the car, their booking, rental adjustments, and when something goes wrong, the customer will be reaching out to you with the expectation of a timely response.

For host’s that choose to focus on operating their vehicle, they outsource their customer service to provide their customers a better experience. We recommend partnering with a Turo Management company to improve your offerings and handle your customer service 24/7.

Vehicle Damage
Let’s be honest. Damage sometimes happens and can never be fully mitigated. That’s why it’s important to make sure you have the right insurance that meets your needs and protocols in place to follow when damage does happen.

You’ll want to prepare a protocol of taking photos of the vehicle at time of drop off and pick up for documentation. This is not something we recommend skipping. You’ll also want to create a play book of handling and resolving damage after a trip has ended, and during a trip in case the vehicle is involved in a collision while on rent.

Hosting
Hosting is what you make of it, between the services you provide your customers and the level of dedication you’re willing to put into your Turo business. We’ve found that the majority of hosts would have a better experience if the host partnered with a Turo Management company, offloading some, to all responsibility of operating.

AURA offers memberships to help hosts and non-hosts succeed and live a less stressful life giving their business the automation they need to achieve their goals.