Looking4Parking changes the way French people book airport parking
Following 6 years of success in the UK, airport parking comparison and booking website looking4parking.com is revolutionising the way in which French people book their airport parking and helping them save money too.
In the UK, almost 80% of airport parking bookings occur online, and often well in advance of using the service. In many European countries this is not the case, as customers turn up at the airport and pay a higher price.
The advance booking model, allows customers to save money by booking further in advance, and also guarantees customers their parking space.
A success story in France and Italy
In 2014, Looking4Parking launched an international version of its website and seeing particular success within the French and Italian markets. Through securing strong partnerships like Air France and HOP! Airlines (a regional French airline), the airport parking reservations system in France is changing for the better. Customers can now book their parking in advance and online and choose from a range of parking options at certain airports including Marseille, Nice, Charles De Gaulle and Toulouse. Not only can customers book the onsite parking at certain airports such as Long Stay and Short Stay parking, they can also compare the price against the offsite car parks which are normally cheaper and can also be booked online.
Looking4Parking has developed a good partnership with Nice airport, and Toulouse Airport, where at these airports the onsite parking is sold and cheaper prices are generally offered the further the customer books in advance.
Another service which is currently gaining traction in France is meet & greet. This is where the customer can drive directly to the terminal entrance, and a chauffeur will be waiting to collect the customers car and park it for them in a secure long stay facility. This saves the customer up to 45 minutes at each end of the trip and is particularly popular at certain UK airports such as Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester and London Stansted. In the last 6 months, the service has been developing at French airports and operating meet & greet companies can now be found at Nice, Toulouse, CDG, Orly, Bordeaux, Marseille and Lyon.
Looking4Parkings sales by product type in France vs. UK are tabled below – showing the strength of Meet & Greet parking in the UK making up 43% of Looking4Parking’s online UK sales compared to just 2% of its French sales.
Source: Looking4Parking.com UK & France website bookings latest quarter to 31 August 2015
The table above all highlights the opportunity that exists in France to create a meet & greet segment and add value into the market both from a service point of view and financial benefit. For airlines such as Air France and HOP! who have a high proportion of business customers, meet & greet will be attractive.
French people are booking at the last minute
Looking4Parkings sales by lead time in France vs. UK London airports are tabled below
Source: Looking4Parking.com UK & France website bookings latest quarter to 31 August 2015
The table demonstrated that almost 60% of French bookings occur within 7 days before travel compared to 33% in UK (London airports), the UK customers are booking much further in advance, with 66% of the bookings occurring more than 7 days out and 21% up to 3 months out (compared to 10% for France)
Air France and HOP! Airlines also have the ability to promote certain offers to their customers through email marketing and pre-flight communications when they know which airport the customer is travelling from.
To strengthen this tailored approach, Looking4Transfers website has been developed, offering customers a transfer by taxi, limo, shuttle bus or coach at their destination.
Based on the success of France and Italy in the airport parking sector, Looking4Parking are going to be rolling out this model to Germany and the USA next throughout 2016.