Park ‘n’ Wash
My car was parked in an off-airport parking facility in Phoenix, AZ when the city was struck by a massive sandstorm, or haboob, on July 6. When I retrieved my vehicle several days later, it was near unrecognizable, covered entirely in a thick film of powder-fine dust. That this was a covered parking lot did little to safeguard my car from the fallout.
I was forced to do a preliminary cleanup to make it possible to at least see through the windows. This was accomplished with a soft-cloth towel that I carry in the trunk. It took care of the windows, but also scared up clouds of dust that settled elsewhere on the car and on my person. Driving home at highway speed took care of the bulk of what remained, and a touchless car wash the following day finished the job.
The parking facility recently started offering car care services on its lot, anything from a quick exterior-only wash to a comprehensive inside-and-out rejuvenation job. The idea being, of course, that the service is performed while the customer is away on his or her travels. I could not help but feel some sympathy for those who had left their vehicles behind to be pampered on July 5 only to find all the work undone upon their return on July 7.
The unhappy outcome results from nothing more than unfortunate timing (a haboob does not come around all that often). The concept remains sound: getting your car detailed while out of town. Everybody benefits. For the customer there is much convenience. For the parking facility operator there are ready sources of additional revenue all over the lot.
It also illustrates the number one trend identified by The 2011 Emerging Trends in Parking survey conducted by the International Parking Institute (IPI). Topping the trends list: the need to generate more revenue. Just as car wash operators have added profit centers to squeeze more dollars out of every square foot, parking lot operators are looking for ways to add for-pay services.
The similarity between car wash and parking lot does not end there. It’s easy to spot further resemblance among the top five parking industry trends:
- Demand for finding ways to increase revenue
- Increased demand for green parking and sustainable parking solutions
- Increased demand for cashless or electronic payment
- Increased use of cell phones to find, reserve, and or pay for parking
- Increased move towards innovative technologies to improve access control
Competition from parking lots is not a new phenomenon. Car care services have been offered at airports for years. More recently, waterless car wash operations have sprung up at several shopping-mall and office-complex parking lots across the country. These services, while they may incorporate a car wash, are essentially part of a detail operation. Waterless car wash providers acknowledge that it would be tough to make a living from washing cars alone.
With 44 percent of respondents to the IPI survey placing need for more revenue at the top of their trends list, it seems certain that a more concerted effort can be expected to
encroach on territory traditionally occupied by others, e.g., car washers. The unfortunate truth is that it is relatively easy to wash cars in a parking lot. The same cannot be said for parking cars at the car wash.
