Bob Thunell of Routes Car Rental

Routes Car Rental is a fast-growing car rental company that is based in Canada but that has locations throughout the world. Headquartered in Toronto, Routes has grown from a small one-location operation in 1998 to a large global car rental provider with over 40 locations located in 11 countries today. The company has plans for this growth to continue in both the short and long term. As part of its core philosophy Routes has been able to grow its business by providing good and consistent customer service coupled with a wide range of current model vehicles for customers to choose from. Routes Car Rental has positioned itself as a value provider in the car rental industry which assures customers that they will receive a great car at a great rate at any Routes Car Rental location.

2020 was a very challenging year for Routes Car Rental and the entire travel industry with the onset of the global pandemic. Bookings plummeted and the company had to take immediate action to continue to operate without any interruption in business operations. The first step in this process was to conduct a companywide meeting using Zoom to communicate with the employees what was going on and to solicit their feedback on how the company could move forward given the very difficult circumstances. The first priority established was to ensure the safety of the employees and the customers, and this was done by strictly following the guidelines put out by both the Canadian and U.S. Governments. Even though it was challenging to find, ample amounts of sanitizer were purchased to ensure each rental location had the amount needed for its day-to-day operation. Plexiglass barriers were put in place at the rental counters and social distancing measures were enacted to prevent the possible exposure of Covid 19 to both the customers and the employees. All rental vehicles were also fully sanitized prior to any rental occurring with special attention given to those areas that have a high customer touchpoint (steering wheel, seat belts, knobs, buttons, etc.)

Once the safety measures and protocols had been put in place the company had to create a plan to try and replace the airport arriving business that was now almost non-existent (any airport arriving business was now being generated by point of sales from within that country as most all borders were shut down). Another call was had with the employee group to solicit their feedback and many ideas were generated. The company focused on local opportunities and called upon businesses through the communities they have locations in. They focused on those businesses that could have use for a rental vehicle such as restaurants that could no longer serve customers indoors for food delivery. Other businesses such as florists, churches, drug stores, and many others were contacted and this helped offset the loss of business from airport arriving customers. In addition to calling on local businesses, the company did advertising using the social media that was available highlighting the wide range of new vehicles that were available to rent for people who wanted to get out of their houses and have day trips with their family. This also proved successful and helped the company continue operations at all its locations without any interruption in service.

Even faced with a pandemic Routes locations grew by over 25% through a combination of a new Affiliation program that was launched in December of 2019 and the addition of its own corporate locations. Bookings continued to recover during the latter part of 2020 as travel started to increase, mainly in the United States (as countries start to recover from the pandemic the points of sales should switch back to pre-pandemic patterns which help the Routes brand grow even faster and not be so reliant on the U.S). In 2021 bookings are up over 10% through the first quarter, and Routes expects double-digit growth for the remainder of the year when compared to 2019 which was the year prior to the pandemic. Routes greatly values its relationship with Discover Car Hire as it has really helped with its growth, and both companies share a commitment to provide the best customer experience possible.