Australia has a new car-sharing app. It’s called Turo and, at a basic level, the best way to describe it is like if Airbnb and Car Next Door (now known as Uber Carshare) had a love child.
Turo is a car-sharing marketplace billed by the company as allowing you to “book any car you want, wherever you want it”.
“Whether you’re flying in from afar or looking for a car down the street, searching for a rugged truck or something smooth and swanky, guests can take the wheel of the perfect car for any occasion, while hosts can take the wheel of their futures by building an accessible, flexible, and scalable car sharing business from the ground up,” the company writes on its website.
Previously only available in the U.S., Canada and the UK, Turo has now launched in Australia. According to Turo Australia managing director Tim Rossanis, who was for a few years Uber Australia and New Zealand’s ‘head of growth’, it was a “no-brainer” to launch down under.
“We are a peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace and what that means is that hosts can start a business on Truro, whether it’s a side hustle or a really meaningful business, and they can put their cars on the platform and guests can book those cars whenever they choose, to match any occasion. That’s the magic of Turo,” Rossanis said, speaking at the platform’s launch in Sydney on Wednesday night.
Turo went live at 5 am Wednesday morning, and according to Rossanis, the “bookings had already started flowing”. He also expanded on why U.S.-based Turo chose Australia.
“Some of you might be thinking, ‘Why did we choose Australia for the launch of Turo?’, and there are a couple of different reasons for that. One is very obvious and then the other might be a little bit of a surprise,” he began.
“What won’t be a surprise to you is that Australia is obviously an iconic tourism destination.”
With the borders reopened, Rossanis said Australia is back on the top of travel lists for many.
“There’s really nothing more iconic when you travel around Australia than doing a driving holiday,” he added.
The second, he said, is that internationally, the second biggest population of driver’s licences come from Australian guests.
“We know that Aussies love to travel, Aussies love Turo and so it was a no-brainer that we were launching here in Australia,” he said.
In Australia, Turo is using the tagline: Day for it? Car for it. That’s so fetch.
Turo, like Airbnb, calls the owners of the cars ‘hosts’ and those that hire them, guests. Something, something experience, something, something.
Just like Airbnb and Camplify, pricing differs from car to car, and the duration you can hire a vehicle for is dependent on availability. As always, it’s worth perusing the FAQs and sussing out any concerns you may have regarding insurance, age restrictions, etc before booking.
Comments