A Cuban Exec at the Helm of Avis Car Rental in Russia
Moscow’s MITT 2016 opened a window of opportunity for lots of companies to showcase their travel-oriented goods and services before Russian and international buyers.
A good case in point was Avis, the giant car rental company that’s landing in Russian by the hand of Alejandro Carreño, a Cuban executive eager to get things going in that large market from his new position as Avis General Manager in Russia.
In an exclusive interview with Caribbean News Digital within the framework of the tourism tradeshow held recently in the Russian capital, Mr. Carreño –who studied in the former Soviet Union back in the 1980s and speaks fluent Russian- talked about the company’s plans to pry into the Russian market.
With ten years of experience under his belt, Mr. Carreño knows what it’s like to start a business from scratch.
“I arrived in Russia in 2006, specifically in Saint Petersburg, because I was initially offered a position as regional manager in that area. We bought one car. I remember it was a Skoda Fabia. In 2010, when I already had a fleet of over 200 vehicles in St. Petersburg, the stockholders proposed me to take over as the general manager of the company,” he explains.
“It’s been all about work ever since. I’ll celebrate the 10th anniversary on May 18 by having representations in 20 cities of Russia, from Kaliningrad, in the east to Vladivostok in the west, in far eastern Russian, with nearly 2,000 cars, some 120 employees and 10 years of hard work,” he goes on to say.
The Cuban-born executive added that the top four international car rental companies are currently operating in the country. Moreover, there are several local companies that basically operate in the cities where they were founded. The international companies are the only ones operating throughout Russia. Avis, though, is the car rental that covers more Russian territory and the only company with presence in all of the Russian Federation regions.
Avis Russia covers the whole range of services that are usually provided in the car rental business, from the economic class to the luxurious one. The main brands included in the fleet are Volkswagen, Ford, Hyundai, Nissan, Mercedes Benz, BMW and Audi.
Though quite successful in the course of a decade, Avis has hit a few snags along the way, a majority of them related to cultural patterns and commercial behaviors.
“Russia is a relatively new market for our business. The Russians prefer having their own car and they still don’t understand the importance of renting a car,” Mr. Carreño explains.
“It’s been hard. Russia is a huge country. The distances among our offices here are a thousand kilometers minimum. That’s the reason why not all of the technologies of our business have been implemented in Russia. We have different projects that are similar to the rest of the world, but we have adapted them to the Russian reality and we are very optimistic.”
As a huge car rental company with offices branched out in 170 different countries, Avis goes the extra mile to support its customers every step of the way. Potential travelers can rent a vehicle with or without chauffer, with GPS system installed in them, international insurance policies and round-the-clock customer service wherever they are.
Avis Russia intends to keep growing with each passing year and it doesn’t rule out the possibility of launching online platforms, such as “Car to Go”, a system applied through the use of Smart and currently operational in several European countries.
As far as the near future is concerned, Mr. Carreño told Caribbean News Digital the reasons why the company is putting its smart money on the Russian market.
“We trust in Russia. That’s the first thing I want to say. We trust in the development of Russia, in Russia’s potential and that’s why expanding our business has been the priority over the past ten years. We believe that the future is here. We have planned to grow in three or five cities over the next ten years and we’re looking forward to operating a fleet of some 5,000 cars in Russia,” Mr. Carreño concluded.
