{"id":138,"date":"2011-05-07T19:39:17","date_gmt":"2011-05-07T19:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/europcar-rental-agency-more-than-just-a-car\/"},"modified":"2011-05-07T21:45:36","modified_gmt":"2011-05-07T21:45:36","slug":"europcar-rental-agency-more-than-just-a-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/europcar-rental-agency-more-than-just-a-car\/","title":{"rendered":"Europcar rental agency: more than just a car"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the largest car rental agencies in the world Europcar<\/span> set up its operations in Rwanda in January of 2011 without much fanfare. But five months on, the company is already making Rwandans to stop and take notice. 
<\/strong><\/p>\n

Going by the motto \u2019You rent more than a car\u201d, the local agency consists of a management team, an operational team, marketing and sales team that have already managed to rapidly gain a huge client base. Some of the firms major clients within this short time span include international organisations<\/span>, NGOs, the U.S<\/span> Embassy as well as individuals who rent cars to travel for long distances.<\/p>\n

The Europcar<\/span> offices are adjacent to Gorilla Hotel in the plush Kiyovu<\/span> estate in Kigali.<\/p>\n

 The operations manager of the local agency is Leonard Mugisha<\/span>, a suave Ugandan-born chap of Rwandan descent, who is convincingly adept at lionising<\/span> his firm. After giving me a short summary of Europa<\/span> cars history, I ask him what the benefits of renting a car from Europa<\/span> car agency rather than another car agency in Rwanda or abroad.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirstly,the maintenance and servicing of the vehicles is one of our major responsibilities and we take seriously what we believe in, though we know how to keep our customers happy even while dealing with the competitive rates, we always remember our long term relationships have been due to our customer satisfaction,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 Europcar<\/span> deals with millions of different types of cars every single day and for every car that is rented, the agency takes full responsibility for not only the insurance cover but also the delivery of the vehicle the customer has requested for. Mugisha<\/span> told IGIHE.com<\/span> that the vehicle with the highest demand in Rwanda is the Toyota Land Cruiser VXV8<\/span>, especially by various organisations<\/span>, private companies, as well as many of the CEO\u2019S of corporate companies such as Tigo<\/span>. Mugisha<\/span> discloses that all these cars are 2010 models. <\/p>\n

The company rents a Toyota Land Cruiser VXV8<\/span> at Rwf<\/span> 100 million, whether the car is brand new or second hand. Renting and leasing isn\u2019t the only service the agency provides.<\/p>\n

\u201cA client may also hire qualified professional drivers to drive you during your lease of the car,\u201d discloses Mugisha<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Europcar<\/span>, a car rental agency that was established in 1945 in Paris, France, now has 145 different rental agencies across the globe, in the Caribbean, North America, the middle east, the United kingdom, Russia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda and now Rwanda. iin<\/span> all these countries, there are over 2,825 different car models rented in 3,000 different locations.<\/p>\n

Europcar<\/span>, which has two divisions ; Europcar<\/span> France and Europcar<\/span> International, partners with a few of the great names in the car industry including Accor<\/span>, Volkswagen, Thalys<\/span>, Renault and Mercedes, as well as working with other partners such as Delta Air Lines and Easy jet. Their solid reputation for professionalism has made them the top third car rental brand in the world.<\/p>\n

 The various prestigious awards that have over a decade placed themselves in their world trophy accolade include the number one and best car rental company in Europe and Africa in 2004 for three consecutive years and the world\u2019s best leisure car in 2006.<\/p>\n

One of leading rental car agencies in the world has come to Rwanda not to compete against us but with us, says Mugisha<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough we are still new, we are now working towards building a relationship with the government of Rwanda\u201d, \u201cI have personally seen what a great and diverse culture Rwanda has and we are hoping to recruit more Rwandans in order to enlarge the diversity of our agency. \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike I said with Europcar<\/span> agency you are renting more than just car,\u201d he aptly recap.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the largest car rental agencies in the world Europcar set up its operations in Rwanda in January of 2011 without much fanfare. But five months on, the company is already making Rwandans to stop and take notice.  Going by the motto \u2019You rent more than a car\u201d, the local agency consists of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[75],"byline":[274],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-homenews","byline-fiona-gasana"],"bylines":[{"id":274,"name":"Fiona Gasana","slug":"fiona-gasana","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":274,"name":"Fiona Gasana","slug":"fiona-gasana","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}