How it all began:
It was 1946 when former Army pilot Warren Avis founded the first car rental service company. The first rental company was located at Willow Run Airport near Detroit, and by 1953, the first dealership opened on the old continent. The year 1963 became the debut year for one of the most famous advertising campaigns of all time, "We Try Harder". In 1972, real-time rentals arrive, AVIS is the first car rental company to use the Wizard reservation and software system. 20 years after the opening of the first European representative office, AVIS becomes the rental leader in Europe, Africa and the Middle East and today operates in 172 countries worldwide, offering more than 500 thousand vehicles.
The story of AVIS in Slovakia is very similar to the American story. In the beginning, there was great courage, a drive to establish ourselves and a constant passion to build a rental company with world-class services for the masses. Our story begins in 1995. We had a small local rental company with 45 older vehicles. At that time, there were only two international companies doing business in Slovakia. After getting AVIS brand representation in an international tender, we started working on our inclusion under the largest car rental company in the world. We gradually changed our fleet of vehicles and it was especially difficult to explain to customers what the global AVIS brand is and what it represents. The truth is that until then it meant nothing in Slovakia, as it had never been active on our market. However, in 1998 we became the largest car rental company in the country and in 2000 our fleet exceeded 100 cars. This was something impossible until then. During 2000 we started to build our first dealerships in the Slovak Republic on the principle of franchise agreements. In 2003, we were one of the first to operate operating leasing under the AVIS Lease brand. The year 2005 was marked by a significant enrichment of the fleet with a new service under the name Avis Van Rental, which is a service of renting vans and commercial vehicles. Our business started to flourish and with the first low-cost airlines starting to fly into Slovakia, the numbers started to grow. In 2006 we exceeded 5 thousand rentals per year and became one of the best in Central Europe. The number of vehicles in our rental fleet exceeded 300 and we became one of the largest car buyers in the country. The demand for rentals was wide-ranging: private individuals, companies, short- and long-term rentals, new factories sent employees abroad on business trips, even people came to rent cars just for fun. Frequent renters were people who, before they bought their own car, came to us to rent a car to test it out. Our basic rule from the beginning was to rent the latest car novelties in the best possible equipment. We have become a car rental company for everyone, accessible to all categories of people without distinction. Everyone knew what Avis stood for, a synonym for high quality car rental. We have always been committed to high quality service, mostly European car brands.
1996 - Rent a car company AVIS Slovakia founded with a fleet of 25 cars
1997 - hiring of first employees, purchase of new cars, introduction of up to 12 categories, the widest offer in the country.
1998 - Leasing establishment of operating leasing as No. 2 subdivision ( in 2003 it became a separate legal structure) AVIS became the largest car rental company in the country (by number of cars, rentals, and branches)
2000 - number of rentals per month exceeded 100
2001 - Rent a Car sub-licensing: signing of the first 4 sub-licensing agreements , opening of branches in Nitra, Banská Bystrica, Poprad, and Košice.
2002 - Van Rental establishment of No.3 AVIS subdivision in the country, renting of commercial vehicles
2004 - Slovakia became a member of the EU, implementation of the international car rental system AVIS Wizard
2005 - AVIS the only company on the market offering up to 16 categories
2006 - Opening of 15 car rental agencies throughout Slovakia
2007 - Total fleet exceeded 725 cars
2010 - change of the company structure to a new model of a complex integrated vertical structure under the single name of United Group operating car rental services
2013 - the total number of dealerships reached 22. AVIS Slovakia achieved the Superbrands award for the first time (the first year when Superbrands started operating in Slovakia).
2014 - AVIS received the Superbrands award for the 2nd year in a row.
2015 - The total number of categories reached 22 car types and up to 35 models, the largest range in the country. The average age of the cars reached 9 months. Establishment of sub-division 5 under the name Avis Maxirent. AVIS won the Superbrands award for the 3rd consecutive year. The number of rentals in the commercial vehicle division increased by 550%
2016 - Opening of the call center, AVIS is the first car rental company with a call center in the country. AVIS wins the award for the 4th year in a row. Fleet surpassed the magic mark of 1000 cars in the fleet. In the commercial vehicle division, we offer refrigerated cars for the first time ever. Opening of 11 dealerships for commercial car rentals. For the first time in history, we established a loyalty - marketing plan called AVIS Ambassador Maxirent. AVIS's total purchase share vs the market exceeded 1.6%. Total number of rentals for the year exceeded 12,000.
2017 - Intelligent Customer Questionnaire - AVIS was the first car rental company to launch a customer questionnaire in order to improve the quality of service. The AVIS Maxirent sub-division added a new service for high-end customers called AVIS Super Maxirent. The Group's total fleet exceeded 1,300 cars.
2017 - AVIS Prestige established with a fleet of 80 cars
2018 - more than 100 MB Sprinters added to the fleet with automatic transmissions for long distance routes
2019 - AVIS Group's leases exceeded 15,000 and the fleet size reached 1,500 cars, we have already won the Superbrands award 7 times in a row.Deployment of the Camasys fleet management system.
2020 - Covid -19 pandemic, the world has changed and AVIS has changed with it. At the end of 1Q 2022, the fleet will be significantly reduced by up to 30%
2021 - First car rental company in the Slovak Republic to rent vehicles "paperless", all processes digitized including electronic document and signature in Camasys 3.8 Development of digitization of Avis Maxirent Standard and Premium programs
2022 - Extension of digitised processes to all Avis sub-divisions. Deployment of Mercedes Benz V 250 4matic minibuses for 8 people to the fleet . For the first time in the history of AVIS SR outside other brands, purchase of 200 Citroen vehicles in C3 and C4 models. Introduction of a new brand to the range from Citroen brand DS with the DS4 model.
2023 - Achieving 97% customer satisfaction in 2023 according to internal CS report. Number of vehicles exceeded the 2019 pre-delivery volumes. Digitalisation of all customer-side processes achieved 98% fulfilment. Addition of Rent & Buy to the customer offer. As part of the digitisation and CO2 compliance, from 1 June all customers will have their comprehensive vehicle emissions added to their bill in full for the period they have had a rental and the miles they have driven.