Island Car Rentals

Island Car Rental 98

Island Car Rental 98

Island Car Rental 99 Island Car Rentals i s the largest and most h ighly regarded r ent-acar company in Jamaica. With over 40 years of industry experience and locations in Kingston and Montego Bay, Island Car Rentals has set the standard for the country's tourist transportation industry. As accident."

Island Car Rental 100 "Myself and a partner of mine were realtors, and we had the largest real estate brokerage Director Michael Campbell. "Webought an had a leaseback agreement with the vendor. It was a car rental company, so we decided to use their rental to pay the mortgage on the building because we had too many carrying costs." - ny were about to lose their jobs because the owner was leaving Jamaica, which also put us in a bind because we had the lease agreement with him,"he continues. "I have a mantra that I live b y, w hich is, ' We're constantly f aced with o pportunities b rilliantly d isguised a s insoluble problems.' Considering we owned years, and the business was doing well, all we needed was a telephone l ine and a few cars, and we could continuepaying the mortgage." Michael's b usiness proposal, the Jamaican government banned importation of cars into

Island Car Rental 101 Jamaica. In line with Michael's mantra, however, he refused to succumb to the seemingly dire circumstances. "I saw an ad in the paper the following mornand that's how we started out, just to pay the mortgage,"he explains. "Eventually, because real estate in Jamaica was dying at the time, my p artner a nd I s aw f urther o pportunity with the car rental business." - ly i nto the business, and were s uccessful in capitalizing on the failings of the big-name international car rental companies. "We would get clients coming over here from Avis a nd Hertz w ith smoke coming o ut o f their ears because they couldn't get a vehicle," says Michael. "Out of that, we developed our - sion of Island Car Rental is to achieve consistent, s uperior levels o f customer s atisfacwhile contributing to the growth of the tourism industry in Jamaica, and remaining the leader in the Caribbean car rental industry.'"

Island Car Rental 102 Having s tarted o ut w ith only t he f our cars - than competing car rental companies, giving "When we o riginally started out, t he b ig boys in the business were the multinational companies, such as Avis, Hertz, and Budget," says Michael. "Today, in Jamaica, if you take all of them and add them together, we're bigger than that." "We have a pproximately 250 e mployees, mainly m aintenance a nd d rivers, p roviding breakdown service anywhere in Jamaica, anytime of day. If you g et into trouble, you call u s and we w ill come a nd g et y ou. We have about ten teams standing by at all times, want, we will supply it." UNDERSTANDING SERVICE As Jamaica's premier car rental company, Island C ar R entals m aintains v ery close ties with its two major vehicle suppliers Toyota

Island Car Rental 103 and Suzuki. Michael describes the company's relationship with these two partners as being "fantastic, absolutely incredible." "When I call Toyota to p lace a n order, i t's quick and easy. When t he c ars arrive, they send me an invoice, I pay them, and they deliver them to me without any hassle," he says. dealer here in Jamaica presented us with an award of appreciation for supporting Suzuki for over 20 years. It has actually b een even longer than that, but we'll accept the 20!" Having strong relationships with suppliers is a common trend throughout the company's entire s upply chain. According t o Michael, Island C ar R entals f orgoes w ritten a greements with their suppliers, g iving them the freedom to walk away at any point. "We say to t hem plain and simple, 'If you - ter than us, you're free to go,'" he s ays. "We now have a reputation in the market where mouth in the industry is huge because a lot of c ompanies i n Jamaica don't understand service, and we do. Service must not equal a client's expectations, it must exceed it."

Island Car Rental 104 ON THE CUTTING EDGE In o rder t o preserve t heir p osition at t he forefront of the transportation industry, Island Car R entals i s constantly s eeking o ut - ple, Michael sends his employees to the Car Rental Show in Las Vegas every year to ensure that the company stays on top of the lat- - bers provide at least one or two innovations annually.

Island Car Rental 105 - ting edge. We're constantly investing in our our 5th operating system now,"he proclaims. "I believe that if you're doing something today the same way you were doing it 10 years ago, t hen you're d oing s omething w rong. You need to evolve." green initiatives, and are "constantly exploring new possibilities" i n order to d o their part in helping the environment. "We store all of o ur u sed oil for recycling, we're very s trict with e lectricity u sage, we reuse and recycle paper. We also recycle our greywater, and we store thousands of gallons - chael. "Wehave an agreement with a garbage disposal c ompany that does r ecycling c ompactions, which costs a fortune, but we pay them to do it. We're also in the process of doing surveys to go completely solar for all our come to mind." GROWING THE TOURISM INDUSTRY Last year, Island Car Rentals won both the 2014 Jamaica's Leading Car Rental Company award and the 2014 Caribbean's Leading Independent Car Rental C ompany a ward. Company at the Hospitality Jamaica Awards, and earned a citation from the Jamaica Customer Service Association for providing top

Island Car Rental 106 quality service. Michael explains that the accolades are tremendous because they give the company a sense of "legitimacy, professionalism and scope." "When somebody searching for car rental in Jamaica sees I sland Car R entals, t hey don't know who we are, so they might think we're they see the awards there, and that this is our fourth consecutive y ear for winning the Jamaica's Leading Car Rental Company award, employees have taken an oath to win the Jamaica's Leading Car Rental Company award - ery year." Island Car R entals h as b een winning local awards f or s everal years now. In 2006, they were given a citation from Jamaica's Tourism Product Development Company for consistently providing the best quality service over a 5-year span, which "wasn't even contested." - try of Tourism in 2008 at the Tourism Serto s timulate h igh quality service among all

Island Car Rental 107 tourism entities in Jamaica. "We won both t he K ingston Resort A rea Champion a ward a nd t he o verall N ational T ourism S ervice E xcellence Champion into c onsideration all of t he h otels, a ttraction o perators, g round tour o perators, a nd everyone else in the tourism industry, and we came out on top." Despite their overwhelming s uccess, however, Island Car R entals h as n o interest i n taking away business from other companies. Instead, they would prefer to "grow the market" and see the entire industry thrive. will cut the travel times tremendously, so it's going to make it easier to get around Jamaica. the car rental industry," he concludes. "As per policy of growing the tourism industry, not just our share of the car rental industry.We want to grow the pie, not take other people's share."

Island Car Rental

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