Car rental company, Enterprise, is launching its operations for the Enterprise Rent-A-Car brand in Portugal, through a franchise.
The company has appointed Guerin Car Rental Solutions as its franchise partner in Portugal, increasing its operations in Europe to six countries, including the UK, Germany, Ireland, France and Spain.
Peter A Smith, the vice president of global franchising for the company, said, ‘While this may be the first franchising agreement for the Enterprise Rent-A-Car brand, it won’t be the last. In fact, we plan to continue this same growth strategy throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
We’re careful to choose strong, stable domestic businesses as our international franchise partners, and Guerin certainly meets that standard as a well-respected travel industry leader in Portugal’
Jim Burrell, the senior vice president for Europe, said, ‘We are committed to developing a comprehensive network of rental car businesses across Europe and beyond.
Since arriving in Europe in 1994, Enterprise has developed a strong brand presence through our corporately owned locations across the UK, Germany and Ireland. But our strategy is to be where our customers need us. Today this brings us to France and Spain with a well-established network of 350 branches and an outstanding and committed team of people.
From here we will quickly look to establish businesses in other markets as our customers’ needs extend beyond our current operations. We will seek to do this in the way that best suits the needs of each market, through affiliates, franchisees and other wholly owned operations’
Enterprise is also re-branding its newly acquired Citer and Atesa operations in France and Spain. The re-branding will add 350 new locations to the company’s car hire network. Today, the European Enterprise Rent-A-Car network operates more than 100,000 vehicles.
