Mittwoch, 6. April 2011

Sixt Car rental in Argentina follows a strategy of stable and healthy growth!

As you can imagine I was pretty excited to speak to el Senior Juan José Craviotto. He was my first interview partner so I prepared a lot of questions and overview information beforehand.
We were sitting in a lovely Argentinian cafè not far away from the Sixt office and I got the chance to get a comprehensive overview of running a business in Argentina as well as more specific information about the car rental industry. Argentina is a country which is facing ongoing changes. Within a short period the government, the currency and the dependencies between companies and citizens can change completely. Therefore companies take a big risk in setting their business up.

Company / Branch specific information:
Sixt started with a franchise system in Argentina in 2006. The argentinian family owned company is Transportes Furlong, which has been in business for the last 50 years, although the Furlong name is related to transportation business for almost 100 years in Argentina. 

In 2006 Sixt Argentina started with a fleet of 25 cars and have constantly expanded to the present 200 cars. The main strategy of Sixt in Argentina is:
  1. To rent their own cars locally;
  2. To sell Sixt rentals from Argentina at a reasonable price throughout the Sixt network.

Market definition:
Compared to some other companies within Argentina the car rental business from Sixt is not that big so far. AVIS as industry leader acts with a fleet of 1200. Local competitors are: Dietrich (aprox. 200 cars), Auto Corp (aprox. 250 cars), Utility (aprox. 600 cars). 40% of the current Sixt Argentina revenue is made by corporate business. 60% comes from mainly European travellers and local people.

Website usage:
The biggest booking channel for both segments is still mainly by phone call / email / 'walk in' with 67% of all reservations. 26% of all bookings come via internet mainly by European travellers. But the number of reservations via the internet is constantly growing particularly during the last couple of months. Half of the customers are paying with credit cards already.

Internet spread / future steps:
Sixt Argentina collected during the last 1 1/2 years a lot of experience in search engine marketing. With the help of a local agency they reached a good level in terms of impressions and click prices.E-commerce is focused within the ads. The conversion rate is still a key task for improvement. Therefore in the future there will be far more stronger collaboration with the Sixt headquarters and their service providers.
Search engine optimization, an Argentinian operated Facebook fan page, cooperation with hotels and travel agencies or any other customer relationship oriented online activities are still not a big issue for Juan. Offline marketing activities are mainly related to regular press releases and ads in magazines. As the fleet has to grow constantly in a difficult surrounding and resources are limited they need to focus on the main tasks to continue running the business in a profitable way.

As with the majority of companies in today's world, online marketing is part of the overall company strategy here in Argentina, however at present it is not run with maximum power behind due to other important business tasks.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that Juan & his team are succeeding on the taken path.

@Juan: Quisiera agradecerle por la entrevista interesante!

1 Kommentar:

  1. Hi,
    This is the perfect blog for anyone who wants to know about this topic. Rent a Car Argentina service offers you friendly service. You will get maximum benefit within the budget. Feel free to know about the details on rent a car Argentina.

    Thanks!
    David Frenandeez

    AntwortenLöschen