One month after Skift broke the news that Airbnb partnered with Ireland-based CarTrawler for car rentals, here’s a behind-the-scenes update and how the partnership works, according to a source familiar with the operation.
Airbnb’s car rentals are hosted on CarTrawler, which has direct relationships with car rental companies — the same arrangement Uber once relied on before building its own direct relationships, a more lucrative setup than going through a middleman like CarTrawler.
Skift is reporting these details for the first time:
The Airbnb-CarTrawler partnership is doing roughly 500 bookings per day in five live markets: the U.S., France, Italy, Spain, and Australia. The bookings are trending toward lower-end rentals, such as with Budget Rent a Car. Budget is a preferred supplier of Airbnb.
Customers view 3-6 car-rental choices at the top of the car rental page that CarTrawler hosts for Airbnb, and they view Airbnb’s roster of preferred partners