Jucy’s Dirty Getaway launched at eco rental car co

Media release – October 6, 2008

Jucy’s Dirty Getaway launched at NZ’s most eco rental car company

New Zealand’s most eco-friendly vehicle hire company Jucy today officially launched its Dirty Getaway scheme.

Dirty Getaway is nothing to do with romantic weekend but customers get $10 off their fire if they accept a car that is dirty on the outside, saving water.

Jucy has been trialing the system for a while and today officially launched the Dirty Getaway scheme to help save water.

``Our aim is to be the No.1 second tier vehicle hire company in Australasia. We’re 100 percent New Zealand-owned but most importantly we’re looking all the time at protecting and sustaining the environment,’’ Jucy chief executive Tim Alpe said today.

``A few people like shiny clean cars on the outside but we know more and more members of the public like us now consider the environment first , which is why we also have the most number of small cars out of all the rental companies.’’

Jucy owns 50 percent of the self-service car sharing scheme in Auckland and Wellington, Cityhop, which has proved to take lots of vehicles off the road and encourages cars to be used only when they are needed.

Jucy’s Auckland branch runs off their own water tank - not the city supply. All their branches have recycle bins for paper, plastic, bottles. The company is a member of Greenfleet and their staff have been involved with tree planting through Greenfleet where they planted scores of native trees.

Alpe said their Jucy website gives tips to customers how to reduce their environmental impact when driving around NZ in their green cars. The company also encourages the use of electronic communications to save paper to help reduce the overall carbon footprint.

Jucy has more than 1000 vehicles that are 1.5 litre or less. They only operate more economical diesel campervans for Hi Top campas. The firm has 1300 cars and 400 campas in its fleet. They also have 250 campas in their Australia fleet.

Alpe estimated New Zealand had about 400 car rental operators and 160 campa supplies in NZ. He said Jucy wanted to be the leading operator of cars and campas in Australasia.

``We are very keen to see Jucy list on the New Zealand stock exchange as we feel the exchange lacks young funky tourism companies for people to invest in. Tourism is one of the biggest employers in NZ and yet is very poorly represented on the exchange. We want to become the ‘Virgin’ of the South Pacific.’’

Tourism numbers are down on previous years and the trend is likely to continue for the next 12-18 months. Alpe said their growth would come from taking market share.

ENDS

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