Alamo Adds Shortcuts, Phones to Amenities

Brandweek, Nov 27, 2000 by Mike Beirne

Alamo Car Rental is trying to take the hassle out of travel with pilot programs for baggage check-in, and stroller and cellular phone rentals that will expand to other car pick-up facilities at major gateways for international and leisure travelers.

Starting last week, Las Vegas customers can now check-in their luggage and grab seat assignments and boarding passes upon dropping off their car rentals at McCarran International Airport. The $6 a person service--children 12-and-under are free--will be provided by Certified Airline Passenger Services, Las Vegas, and likely will be offered to Los Angeles customers next.

The ANC brand also is negotiating with vendors to provide prepaid cellular phones by December. The $99 phones comes with a calling package--71 minutes is standard--head set, battery and charger. That program will roll out in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, Fla., locales where strollers recently became available for $5.95 a day versus the $6.95 that Disney World charges for wheels that must remain on property. Alamo also offers Orlando theme park visitors a set of two-way radios for $9.95 a day.

POP will build awareness for the amenities, which Alamo has been adding per its positioning as the only car rental brand that's enhances the rental and vacation experience. Alamo last April re-opened its Fort Lauderdale airport plaza with a two-story playground, free luggage lockers, c-store with munchies at non-airport prices and changing booths--a feature based on cultural anthropologists' observations of customers shedding their cold weather duds at Alamo parking lots (Brandweek, April 10).

The extras, which include touchscreen kiosks that print directions and connect travelers to a live concierge, were placed in Dallas, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. As these industry firsts become more pervasive around the Alamo network, they could figure more prominently in advertising later, which FCB, New York, handles.