From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Avis Car Rental

Global car rental brand

Field	Value
name	Avis Car Rental, LLC
logo	AVIS logo 2012.svg
logo_alt	Avis logo 2012
type	Subsidiary
founder	Warren Avis
areas_served	165 countries
key_people	Brian Choi (CEO)
industry	Car rental, Franchising
services	Car rental, Subscription
revenue	5.3 billion
revenue_year	2019
parent	Avis Budget Group
foundation	in Ypsilanti, Michigan, U.S.
location	Parsippany, New Jersey, U.S.
num_locations	5,500
num_locations_year	2019
homepage
footnotes

Avis logo used from 1964 until December 2012

Avis Car Rental, LLC is a Global car rental company headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey. Along with Budget Rent a Car, Budget Truck Rental and Zipcar, Avis is a unit of Avis Budget Group.

Avis Budget Group operates the Avis brand in North America, South America, Europe, India, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. In 2011, Avis acquired Avis Europe plc, which had been a separate corporation licensing the Avis brand.

Since the late 1970s, Avis has featured mainly General Motors (GM) vehicles such as Chevrolet, but today also rents other popular brands such as Ford and Toyota.

Avis at [[Philadelphia International Airport

Avis was the first car rental business to be located at an airport, and today is a provider to the commercial segment serving business travelers at major airports internationally, and to leisure travelers at off-airport locations. Many of the off-airport locations are franchised operations rather than company-owned and operated, as is the case with most airport locations. In January 2013, the company agreed to acquire Zipcar for $491 million.

History

The company was founded in 1946 with three cars at Willow Run Airport, Ypsilanti, Michigan, by Warren Avis (August 4, 1915 – April 24, 2007). It established branch operations across the United States over the next few years, becoming the second largest car rental company in the country by 1953. By its tenth anniversary in 1956 it had opened its first international offices in Europe, Canada and Mexico.

The Avis corporate motto of "We Try Harder" was adopted in 1962, during CEO Robert Townsend's tenure, who transformed the company. The campaign aimed to put a positive spin on Avis' status as the second largest car rental company in the United States, at the expense of its larger competitor, Hertz. The slogan was used for 50 years before a re-branding in 2012, when Avis unveiled a new slogan—"It's Your Space."

In 1972, Avis introduced Wizard, the first computer-based information and reservations system to be used in the United States car rental business; to this day, almost all frequent Avis customers are identified by their unique "Wizard number". In 1981, the company instituted its system of vehicle tracking, that was named Advanced Vehicle Identification System (AVIS).

Avis has been owned by a number of other companies over the years, along with several periods of being a public company. These include:

1956: The Amoskeag Company
1962: Investment group Lazard Freres
1965: ITT Corporation
1977: Norton Simon
1983: Esmark
1984: Beatrice Foods
1986: Investment firm Wesray Capital Corporation
1987: Majority ownership under an Employee Share Ownership Plan
1989: General Motors (acquired 29% stake)
1996: HFS Corporation
2001: Cendant
2006: Avis Budget Group

References

"Corporate Profile". Avis Car Rental.
(February 20, 2020). "SEC Filings: 10-K 2019". Avis Budget Group.
"[http://www.avis.com/car-rental/content/display.ac?navId=T6M21S02 Corporate Facts]." Avis Rent a Car System. Retrieved on June 14, 2009.
"Avis Budget Group :: Home".
Nicholson, Chris V.. (June 14, 2011). "Avis Budget to Buy Avis Europe for $1 Billion". DealBook.
Kyle Hyatt. "Toyota helps Avis smarten up its operation with 10,000 connected cars". Road Show.
David Silver. "As Car Rental Changes, Avis Bets On Empowering The Customer". Forbes.
(January 2, 2013). "Avis Budget Makes $491 Million Offer to Acquire Zipcar". Bloomberg.
''Business Superbrands'', Editor: Marcel Knobil, Author James Curtis (2000), Superbrands Ltd. {{ISBN. 0-9528153-4-6, p. 18.
[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9814473 Car-Rental Pioneer Avis Dies at 92], ''Morning Edition'', April 25, 2007
(2002). "A Century of American Icons: 100 Products and Slogans from the 20th-Century Consumer Culture". Greenwood Press.
Booth, Darren. (August 31, 2012). "Is Avis 'Trying Hard' Enough With New Slogan?". CNBC.
ABG. "Historical Chronology".
Cole, Robert J.. (April 30, 1986). "Wesray Gets Turn at Owning Avis". The New York Times.
McDowell, Edwin. (July 2, 1996). "HFS Will Acquire Employee-Controlled Avis for $800 Million in Cash and Stock". The New York Times.
"Avis Budget Group". Forbes.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1946-establishments-in-michigan american-companies-established-in-1946 avis-budget-group car-rental-companies-of-the-united-states companies-based-in-nassau-county,-new-york franchises parsippany-troy-hills,-new-jersey retail-companies-established-in-1946 transport-companies-established-in-1946

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Avis Car Rental — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report