Ohio University is planning to expand and promote its rental car service so it doesn’t have to pay the difference for its lack of use as specified in contractual obligations.
The Enterprise CarShare program—formerly called WeCar—will expand its marketing campaign to increase membership and cover the cost of the program for its second year at OU.
As part of an agreement with Enterprise, OU has to make $1,100 in revenue from Enterprise’s two rental cars parked in the Baker University Center parking lot each month. If OU generates more than $1,100 from rentals, it gets to keep 10 percent of the surplus revenue. If OU does not make that figure, it has to pay the difference amount between $500 and $1,100.
OU didn’t make enough revenue to pay for the Enterprise CarShare program every month last year. The Office of Student Affairs and Department of Transportation and Parking Services had to pay Enterprise a total of $4,753 last school year, said Ryan Lombardi, vice president for student affairs.
Enterprise declined to release its total revenue from last academic year.
If there were a larger demand for the rentals, more cars could be made available, said Jim Wissel, director of business rental sales at Enterprise.
“We’ve seen the awareness of the program increase, and we really expect more students, faculty and staff to utilize the program as we move into this second year, so we’re very excited and very happy with the way things are going,” he said.
The popularity of this year’s program will determine whether it continues.
“I know that students were using (the cars), but I also know that there wasn’t an overwhelming demand,” Lombardi said. “Our thought was, even if we do have to subsidize this, the cost is still relatively low to what I perceive the benefit to be to those students who would use it.”
To increase its popularity on campus, Lombardi and Enterprise representatives will distribute fliers and emails as well as table in Baker Center. An OU student intern, Kevin Brantley, a fifth-year senior studying political science and criminology, was also hired to promote the program.
Part of the increased marketing at OU will include clarifying the company’s name change, which came about because of a consolidation of Enterprise’s rental car programs at more than 75 universities and more than 40 businesses. The name changed from WeCar to Enterprise CarShare, said Gregory Phillips, Enterprise spokesperson.
“We’ve had a series of acquisitions that have occurred as well as the national growth for the program, and we really thought it was important to bring it under the Enterprise umbrella and the Enterprise CarShare,” Phillips said.
dk123111@ohiou.edu
@DanielleRose84
