National Car Rental remains confident of growth

National Car Rental believes that it will be able to sustain a significant level of growth over the course of the coming months, even though the looming recession in the United States, jittery markets in Europe and record-high fuel prices have caused headaches for nearly all sectors of the travel industry. The car hire giant maintains that there is huge potential for growth in the UK and Lorraine Farnon, the firm’s British sales director, believes that National’s minibus and van rentals will become especially popular. In fact, Farnon observed that growth will likely be in the double digits, in this sector.

Farnon pointed out that many people and businesses prefer to rent vans or a minibus, because a rental agreement offers them much more flexibility than signing onto a long-term leasing contract. Some companies, for example, will also choose to rent their fleet of vehicles-used by employees-because this remains a more cost efficient option than either buying cars which will end up depreciating over time, or leasing for extended periods.

Neverthless, Farnon did concede that National faces some major challenges ahead. One of the biggest problems-for all rental firms-is that it is becoming much more expensive to purchase new rental vehicles from manufacturers, as they are now less willing than they were before to provide these at lower rates to car hire firms. As such, Farnon observed that National’s main goal is to make its business more efficient, so as to balance off these extra expenditures.

www.nationalcar.co.uk