General Manager Jimmy Fitzpatrick talks about how his company has grown the past seven years and how

Starting with fewer than five used vehicles, Leisure Car Rental cruise lines ratings opened cruise lines ratings its doors in St. Maarten on March 1, 2007. Today, the independent rental company has grown to 50 vehicles at its main office cruise lines ratings located near Princess Juliana International Airport.
General Manager Jimmy Fitzpatrick talks about how his company has grown the past seven years and how it competes against the franchises and other independent rental companies in the highly competitive rental market on the island of St. Maarten.
Our location is near the Princess Juliana International Airport, the larger of the two airports in St. Maarten. For now, we deliver cars island-wide (on both Dutch and French sides on the island). We deliver to the airports, cruise cruise lines ratings ports, hotels, resorts, villas, marinas, and even private residences.
Leisure Car Rental started operating on March 1, 2007. The business was a one-man operation with fewer than five used cars. I only served the local market at that time, since most tourists preferred newer cars. There was very little chance of leisure competing in the tourist market when most car rental agencies had a newer fleet.
By 2009, our fleet doubled to 10 cars. We had about three employees and made a bold move to begin competing in the tourist market. cruise lines ratings I still remember our first tourist client. His name is Mr. Steve Marcello. He still rents from us to this day. He single-handedly convinced most of his friends cruise lines ratings to rent from us, too, and they return cruise lines ratings to us year-after-year for their car-rental needs.
Yes, absolutely. We are always trying to find new sources of business and increase productivity of existing cruise lines ratings sources. We plan to expand our fleet to 75 cars by 2015, so we definitely need to attract more customers to maintain and/or increase our fleet utilization rate.
Ten years ago, many tourists would have been happy to have arrived on the island and rent any car. Dings and dents did not matter too much. The age of the car also didn t matter too much, as long as the car had air conditioning cruise lines ratings and could get renters from point A to point B. And price wasn t too important, since there were few car rental agencies operating at that time on our island.
Today, the number of car rental agencies operating cruise lines ratings in St. Maarten has more than quadrupled. Now, both locals and tourists are demanding more for their money. The car needs to be new and in excellent condition. Service must be on par with international companies. Today, renters cruise lines ratings want all of this and more for roughly half the price of a rental car 10 years ago.
We partner with many travel agents and also invest in online advertising, but the payback has not been as expected. Marketing accounts for less than 40% of our clients. The rest is purely repeat cruise lines ratings customers and word of mouth referrals.
Over the years, we have come to the realization that most visitors to St. Maarten book an entire vacation package through booking sites such as Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline, etc. We have tried numerous times to have Leisure listed on at least one of these sites, but to no avail. It seems that they only list the international companies such as Hertz and Payless. I believe cruise lines ratings it would be a great boost for us, if we could be listed cruise lines ratings on one of these booking sites.