CarPro and Avis India as publised in TravelBissmonitor.com
Date: 05-06-2010
Saturday, June 05, 2010, 11:00 Hrs [IST]
Avis India in process of integrating new software- CarPro into its booking system
By P Krishna Kumar | New Delhi
Avis India, premium car rental services provider in India, is in the process of integrating new software- CarPro into its booking system, through which customers will be able to directly book their choice of cars worldwide. The system will also provide information on the availability of cars on the given date or available alternate options to the customer. The system will also enable corporate customers to track the usage of cars.
Sunil Gupta, CEO, Avis India said, “It’s a huge initiative on the technology front, and a lot of our corporate clients were keen to work on such solutions. The new software has already been integrated with the back-end processes and will be integrated with the website by June 10, 2010.” For Avis India, a major part of its booking comes from hotels and the rest from corporate clients. The company is in the process of forming long-term synergies with various national and international airlines to increase their business.
The company will also be expanding its foothold in the premium car rental business in the country through targeted B2B and B2C marketing of their products and services this year. As a first step, the company has added new features to its website to enable both B2B and B2C customers to book cars seamlessly from any part of the country.
According to Gupta, although Avis India has its online presence for many years, its potential was not fully leveraged by the company in the past. “Since we have started leveraging it, the online transactions have started increasing and people from across the globe are booking cars and various packages offered online.” With the new technology in place, Avis India plans to improve direct customer bookings by ten per cent in the next one year. Direct customer bookings were less than two per cent of the total B2C booking till now. “A lot of corporate clients are keen to see us get into car leasing,” added Gupta.
Furthermore, with the 2010 FIFA World Cup scheduled to take place from June 11- July 11, 2010 in South Africa, the company has issued Avis guide to driving in South Africa. This travel advisory includes a number of guidelines to help visitors travel safely around the country. Avis in South Africa is also offering competitive rates for all the destinations namely Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, and many more. These car rentals start from R159 per day onwards.
When asked about the preparations for the Commonwealth Games 2010, which will be held in October this year in New Delhi, Gupta said that they will pool more vehicles from other cities to fulfill the increased demand in Delhi during that period. At the same time, Avis India is also in touch with sports departments of various Commonwealth countries so that they can book cars in advance for their travel while in Delhi.
The company recently launched ‘Self drive’ all inclusive tours to Thailand and Europe for Indian outbound. According to Gupta, the self-drive package for Thailand was a huge success and that made them offer similar option for Europe as well. Avis India plans to introduce similar self-drive all inclusive packages to the US soon. Moreover, Avis India plans to offer similar packages in India for domestic and inbound travellers from next winter.
Avis India, a joint venture of Avis Europe and the Oberoi Group of India, has presence in almost 18 cities in the country. Apart from the Oberoi hotels across India, Avis India also serves hotels like the Hyatt, Marriott, Radisson, Ista, etc.