Europcar signals good times ahead
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Despite a downturn in arrivals last year, car hire in the region boomed, at least for Europcar, explained Middle East sales manager, Olivier Boucher, who reported a 40 per cent increase in revenues in 2009.This figure represented the largest percentage rise for inbound business of any region worldwide for the car hire giant, said Boucher, who added that the boom in bookings was continuing in 2010. “Trend has been up, with a 34% rise on inbound to the end of April, while outbound was up 22%.”With new offices in Iraq and Iran set to open later this year, completing Europcar’s regional rollout, the company is looking to boost its market share even further. “We signed an agreement to open in Irbil in northern Iraq last week, and will go in to Iran later in the year,” Boucher said. “Oil is driving business in Irbil, while we see potential for leisure in Iran as well as servicing the demand for outbound to the GCC countries.”Elsewhere, Boucher said Europcar would be capitalising on its new operations in Saudi Arabia, focusing not only on outbound and the local market but also developing inbound through targeting religious tourists visiting Makkah.For the summer, he said early indications were that Europe would enjoy strong growth, and he recommended early reservations to secure bookings, particularly for the larger vehicles popular with Arab travellers.”Generally, we recommend to book early for vans, luxury cars and automatics as there are not so many around as the compact models - reservations more than 30 days in advance will guarantee a confirmation but from this market, the average is 48 hours.”However, while a shortage of rental vehicles has been predicted for the Mediterranean in particular this summer as a fall-out of the economic crisis, Boucher said with the majority of bookings from the Middle East falling in July, pre-Ramadan, he was optimistic regional travellers would not be affected.”Generally, the biggest season in the Mediterranean is August, but we still recommend booking early as prices will go up if there is a shortage of vehicles.”Overall, Boucher stressed that the travel trade should look to ancillary products such as car hire and insurance to boost revenues. “We are working with travel management companies and agents and find that markets such as Qatar and Egypt are working well, but we need to focus on the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia,” he said.”There is a big need for training to stimulate the trade to become more proactive on bookings, to enable them to propose a menu of products to customers - it is key for profits.”
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