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Once upon a time in a small
country called Greece in a big city called Athens there
was a busy street filled with Car Rental Agencies. Some
were large multi-national companies like Herts, Avis and
Budget with thousands of offices all over the world and
some were little shops with a few cars.....
One day a young man by the name of Ellias,
one of the owners of a well known rent-a-car agency,
looked around at all the other car rental agencies on the
same street in Athens and said to himself "This is
ridiculous. Why should I be here on this busy street with
the rest of all these Car rental agencies when I can be on
a nice quiet street in the Plaka where the travelers
are?
So he packed up his desk and opened his own
little car rental agency close to
the hotels, restaurants and archeological sites of the
city.
One day his sister called him up and said "Elia... why are you on Nikis street all by yourself? Why don't you merge Swift with my company Avanti and come back to the neighborhood? My son Salvo will help you and between the two of you, you can deliver the cars to the hotels of the customers instead of having them come to the office.
Elias thought about it. It made sense. If he was going to deliver the cars to the hotel and the airport or wherever the clients wanted, why did he need to be in the Plaka? So he joined forces with Avanti. Then he wondered to himself "What can I do
to make renting a car an easier experience for a tourist
who may be intimidated by Athen's wild traffic?" He came
up with an idea. He would
drive the clients to the
outskirts of the city where
driving is less challenging and let them take it from
there.
Then he asked himself what else he could do
to make his little car rental agency more appealing."Why
not charge extra-low rates and also give a
generous 10% discount to
people who mention they saw his info on the
internet."
But something was missing. "Ah yes" he
thought. "The cars!" and he bought the finest cars for
each size catagory in a variety of festive colors.
Then he came up with another idea. "Why limit the customer to these cars? Why not work with other car rental agencies and offer the customer any car he wants at discounted rates? Jeeps, SUVs, convertibles, luxury cars, automatics, tip-tronics, sports cars, hybrids, vans, mini-buses ....... everything!" And that is what he did.
"My wife and I just completed a fabulous road trip in the Peloponnese, all made possible by Elias Manoua and the car rental agency he runs, which I discovered on your blog. Elias was great to work with from the US, always responsive to my queries. Elias's staff delivered the car near our hotel downtown and drove us to the freeway heading to Delphi, our next stop. After explaining the road ahead, Elias's staff jogged off to his next connection, I suspect. The car drove wonderfully and was essential to our exploration of the Peloponnese, from Kalavryta to Kardamyli, from Olympia to Monemvasia and Nafplio. We could not have seen what we saw without our rental car. We paid a bit more to return the car to the airport. Once again, we were met by staff who were very efficient and clear in their communication. By the time we were in the terminal, we realized that my wife had left her jacket in the car. I called Elias, explained the situation, and soon, we had the jacket. Try that with one of the big companies! So, there's no doubt, when we return to mainland Greece, we will rent from Elias." M.Weber 2017
The Cars
of Swift
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