Drive Electric Orlando

Delegates attending business conventions in the bustling hotels of Orlando, Florida, USA who want to see something other than the inside of a convention hall – to visit Disney World perhaps and sample a ride or two – can now rent an electric car in order to do so. It is all thanks to the Drive Electric Orlando partnership set up by leading hotels, some of the area’s major tourist attractions, and Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

Enterprise is offering customers the chance to pick up a battery-powered Nissan LEAF from its Orlando International Airport rental counter.

Drivers who fear they may run out of power and be stranded are likely to be reassured by the presence of around 300 charging stations in Orlando and the surrounding area, many of which are free to use.

In addition, several of the partner hotels, including The Peabody Orlando and Renaissance Orlando, provide free re-charging for Drive Electric Orlando participants along with valet parking. Furthermore, the Orange County Convention Center offers several free charging centres for meeting attendees.

Cut the carbon

The initiative is yet another example of the pressure on rental fleets and their clients to cut their carbon footprints; and the pressure is being increasingly felt worldwide.

In Australia, Hertz has just added 40 Toyota Prius Hybrids to its Green Collection. They can be hired from locations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Perth.

‘Globally we are constantly looking for initiatives that reduce environmental impacts,’ says Michel Taride, group president, Hertz International. ‘The Green Collection highlights this commitment and features vehicles that reduce CO2 emissions to a practicable minimum.’

Returning to the USA, Hertz is making the electric Tesla Model S available for rent in California at San Francisco and Los Angeles airports. The rental giant points out that it can accelerate from 0-60mph in just 4.2 seconds, which is why, one assumes, it is being included in Hertz’s Dream Car collection; an exotic line-up of powerful vehicles not normally associated with low CO2 emissions.

It includes Aston Martin’s V8 Vantage, Bentley’s Continental GT, Chrysler’s SRT Viper and Ferrari’s California.

Notwithstanding the imperative to cut pollution, such cars appear to be becoming more popular among an admittedly comparatively small band of clients, and the rental companies are determined to capitalise on it.

In the USA, National Car Rental has rolled out its Premier Selection to some 25 of the country’s key airports, including Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago.

The Premier line-up embraces Cadillac’s Escalade and Lincoln’s Navigator.

‘We’ve seen an increase in requests for high-end cars from our customers and we’re pleased to offer a range that exceeds their expectations,’ says National’s assistant vice president of brand marketing, Rob Connors,

‘Whether closing a deal or entertaining clients, our customers occasionally need the extra prestige that comes with these upscale vehicles.’

Along with Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Alamo Rent A Car, National Car Rental forms part of Enterprise Holdings.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Hertz is promising what it describes as hot hatch fun in the Netherlands with blackand-gold Ford Focus ST-H models offered for rent at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. If that is not enough excitement for you then you can always raid Hertz’s Supercar range in various European

Union countries and hire yourself a McLaren MP4-12C Spider or a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta.

Book via app

Sixt is understandably delighted by what it says is the warm response from its customers to its Rent a Car App, now optimized for use with the iOS 7 Apple operating system. Complete with an Apple Passbook function, it guides users through each step of the booking process and ensures that clients always know the current status of their bookings.

Once a booking is complete customers receive all the information they require about the collection point and the vehicle booked along with the reservation number and what they have to do if they need to cancel. It also tells drivers how to set about returning the car at the end of the rental period and can display a summary of all information related to the booking.

Thrifty Car Rental is among the many other companies in the hire sector that have recognised the importance of apps, with one for Microsoft’s Windows Phone that it says allows users to book a rental car in just three steps.

Having a presence on the apps of third parties can be almost as important as having an app of your own.

Sixt hire cars can be booked by using the Travel Guide by Worldhotels app developed by leading group for independent hotels, Worldhotels. It can be downloaded from the iTunes Store and Google Play.

Avis has integrated Avis Preferred, its express rental service, with Google

Apps cannot always substitute for a tangible physical presence however; even though that presence may not necessarily be manned.

Share the experience

It seems unlikely that such expensive exotica would be found in a humble car-sharing programme. Car-sharing schemes are growing in importance too however, and the major rental companies are closely involved in their development.

Last year saw Enterprise Holdings acquire Chicago’s IGO CarSharing, a not-for-profit organisation serving over 15,000 members with upwards of 200 locations in more than 40 neighbourhoods. Enterprise CarShare is now active on some 40 government and business campuses in the USA and in over 15 markets, including New York, Boston and Philadelphia as well as Chicago.

Alphabet has introduced a corporate car sharing scheme as an alternative to daily rental under the AlphaCity banner.

‘Employees reserve cars from their company’s AlphaCity pool via an online platform,’ explains Alphabet International’s head of marketing and business development, Carsten Kwirandt.

‘No key is required to pick the vehicle up as access is by means of an RFID chip and the car can be operated with a stop/start button.

‘To return the car, users simply leave it in a dedicated parking space, log off and walk away. Alphabet takes care of maintenance and cleaning.

‘Furthermore, with AlphaCity it is possible to offer employees a private use option,’ he continues. ‘They can book and pay for a car with their personal credit card and the income generated can be offset against the company’s mobility costs.

‘In fact one Alphabet customer finances almost 100% of their AlphaCity leasing fees through private use income,’ he adds. ‘So far AlphaCity has been rolled out in seven markets and we plan to add four new markets this year.

‘With an accessible, uncomplicated car pool readily available, the need for daily rentals, taxis and couriers is substantially reduced, and all signs point to a growth in demand,’ he states.

Not to be outdone, Hertz On Demand, the company’s global car sharing business, is operating a car pool for Lufthansa employees in Germany from locations at Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg airports.

Having signed up for the service, airline staff can make their car reservations via the internet, a mobile web page, or an iPhone app; and there is no denying that apps are becoming a lot more important in the rental business.

In a recent survey conducted in the USA by Harris Interactive on behalf of National Car Rental, 71% of business travellers said they could not live without at least one kind of mobile app while out on the road.

Rental goes digital

Hertz now operates 55 ExpressRent kiosks in New York and aims to increase this to over 100 this year. In operation round-the-clock seven days a week, they enable users to complete the entire rental transaction using a touch screen with a second screen that allows customers to interact face-to-face with service agents.

‘Rentals booked at kiosks already represent more than 10% of our New York transactions,’ says Hertz chairman and chief executive officer, Mark P Frissora.

The company now has over 725 kiosks at more than 535 airport and off-airport locations in the USA and Europe.

At the same time Hertz is transforming some of its rental locations into mini business centres, with iPad stations, recharging points for mobile devices, printing facilities and access to FedEx services. Sites in San

Diego, USA, Shanghai, China, and Melbourne have all been modernised in this way.

Hertz is also planning to expend its 24/7 service, which makes it possible to collect rental cars and drive away in them at any time, day or night. You reserve the vehicle online, swipe your special Hertz customer key fob against a reader on the windscreen to unlock the doors then drive away using the keys tethered to the dashboard.

The facility is on offer at around 2,000 sites in the USA, Australia and Europe offering 35,000 vehicles that are 24/7-enabled. Hertz hopes to have around 500,000 enabled worldwide by 2016.

‘At that point our 24/7 fleet would be more than ten times the size of the current car-sharing industry combined,’ says a company spokesman.

Global expansion

All the leading rental companies are expanding their presences in various markets worldwide, often through agreements with existing local players.

In Canada, Europcar has inked a partnership deal with Discount Car and Truck Rentals, with over 260 locations and 17,000 vehicles covering the entire country.

Discount is serving Europcar’s customers in Canada while Europcar is serving Discount’s customers in the rest of the world.

Europcar has signed a similar agreement in the USA with Franchise Services of North America, which owns the Advantage Rent a Car brand.

In India, Avis has expanded its network to 45 locations in 20 cities with the opening of its first rental outlet in Vadodara in the state of Gujarat. The company has a joint venture agreement with hospitality group Oberoi and is also busy launching car rental operations in Laos and Cambodia.

In China, Hertz has taken a 20% stake in China Auto Rental while Sixt has been busy expanding its presence in South America with its first car rental outlet in Chile.

The operation has been set up in the capital Santiago and Sixt is working with Mobility Service Chile as its franchise partner. The new venture is initially concentrating on the premium end of the market with a fleet of BMWs.

Enterprise Holdings is introducing its National and Alamo brands to Uruguay in conjunction with local firm Olecram. The initial site is in the country’s capital city of Montevideo, with locations also planned for Montevideo airport, the historic city of Colonia and the upmarket resort of Punta Del Este.

Alamo is also moving into Peru, with an outlet at Jorge Chavez International Airport ten miles outside Lima, the capital.

The Alamo brand is being franchised to local company COPA; yet another example of the way in which franchising is being used by a major rental group as a cost-effective method of international car-hire expansion.