For the last 18 years, prior to taking up the reins at CarTrawler in April 2018, Cormac Barry worked in online gaming, being part of the team that set up paddypower.com, the Irish bookmaker which offers sports betting, online poker, online bingo, online casino and online games.
His first impression of the car rental industry when he returned to Dublin from Australia where he had been CEO of Sportsbet, the Australian division of Paddy Power Betfair, was one of surprise. “Online gaming had gone al mobile, I was amazed to see an industry still on desktop,” said Barry.
Barry, who took over from Mike McGearty, CarTrawler’s CEO for 12 years, said online gaming had also aced the “holy trinity” of “content, personalisation and use of data” and knew how to operate at high margins and scale.
“I love taking big bets,” he jested, when I asked him why he decided to leave such a vibrant and dynamic industry for car rentals. He cites a combination of family reasons – “I wanted my kids to reconnect with their roots” – and a desire for a new professional challenge.
Barry is credited with playing a central role in building Paddy Power’s overall online presence and helped more than double the company’s share of the Australian online market since heading up the Sportsbet subsidiary after Paddy Power acquired it in 2009.
His appointment sparked speculation that CarTrawler was setting itself up for an IPO with the Irish Times commenting at the time, “Access to the equity markets would give CarTrawler the firepower to move the business up another gear.”
To WiT, Barry said, “Having worked in public companies before, I wanted to understand how private equity worked.”
He added, “CarTrawler is a disruptive business in a growth industry and I felt I could make a change – it’s a small company, 500 employees, with global reach.”
According to Acumen Research and Consulting, the global car rental market size is expected to reach over US$187.5 billion by 2026 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13.7% during the forecast period, 2019-2026.
Online gaming, he also felt, had reached its peak and his thinking is he could bring lessons from the industry, particularly around mobile, and use of content and data, to CarTrawler.
CarTrawler, he said, was disruptive to car hire and suppliers and what was unique about it was that it offered a three-sided car rental marketplace, linking consumers, suppliers and partners. “For airlines and OTAs, we bring another product to them and for consumers, we give consumers choice, value and convenience,” he added.
While B2C currently accounts for about a third of the business – through its two consumer brands, Holiday Autos and Argus Car Hire – Barry wants to focus more on perfecting its B2B proposition, offering CRM, end-to-end solutions in conversions and revenue management to help its partners offer the right products to the right consumers.
“B2B is growing rapidly and it’s our strategic focus as we consolidate ourselves into offering best in class solutions,” said Barry, acknowledging, “B2C is hard.”
The good thing about having consumer brands though is that “they provide test ground for innovation of the product”, he said.
Another area of focus is mobile. “We will invest heavily in it. Gaming went through that same journey, mobile was low at first and then it overtook desktop. We want to optimize how we integrate with mobile, use point of location, CRM and push notifications to sell the right product at the right time.”
A new app allows airlines to integrate easily and for their customers to use loyalty points to get a Lyft, Uber or Careem, depending where you are. And another opportunity is using data to push in-destination activities.
He’s also scaled back the company’s global expansion to focus on the North America. “We felt we were doing too much – Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. The US is a growth market with airlines such as Westjet, Volaris and OTAs growing their business there.
“This is a huge opportunity for us,” said Barry, and he’s betting that CarTrawler’s success in Europe, the second largest car rental market, will place it in good position to make headway.
According to the Acument report, North America dominates the global car rental market owing to the growing adoption of rental vehicles and increased investment in the countries such as the US and Mexico driving market growth in North America.
Summarising CarTrawler’s new focus – “B2B, America, mobility, mobile”, Barry said, “We want to consolidate and be excellent at a few things.”
He will consider adding other modes of transportation – scooters, e-scooters – “when the time is right”.
“That trend of reducing friction in travel is the way the world is going. We solve one component of the problem, we are part of the jigsaw, and we are happy with that. There’s a huge amount of consolidation going on, as there are opportunities and innovation, an exciting time.”
Commenting on similarities between online gaming and the car rental business, Barry said, “Pricing and betting models are similar, some of the same techniques can be used. And in B2B, relationships make a big difference.”
Timing is also everything. As Barry sees it, the online gaming industry has reached its peak. “The exciting times are done. There’s a lot of regulatory stuff coming and all the growth would have to come from M&A and cutting costs.”
In contrast, at CarTrawler “we are creating travel aspirations”.
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