Avis to Begin Letting Cars Enter Mexico

Avis Rent A Car will soon become the first major car rental company to allow motorists with proper insurance to drive rental cars across the U.S. border into Mexico, insurance industry sources said Monday.

Avis will join Dollar Rent A Car and a handful of smaller rental companies that already allow properly insured motorists to drive rented vehicles into Mexico. Avis will hold a morning press conference today in San Diego to discuss details of the program, company spokeswoman Sarah Bates said Monday.

“We wanted to make the announcement in the city where it will have the greatest impact,” she said. “We really think it’s an opportunity to increase tourism and business opportunities in San Diego.”

The nation’s major car rental companies have generally prohibited customers from driving rental cars into Mexico. At Dollar, which began allowing such travel three years ago, “all you need to do is purchase Mexican insurance, which we sell right at the counter,” said Walter Everett, Dollar’s San Diego general manager. “It’s been worth our while to do it, because we’ve been getting the clientele that wants to rent a car and go into Mexico.”

“It’s interesting, and it definitely will make it easier for tourists and business people to travel into Mexico,” said Ricardo Pinto, chancellor in the Mexican government’s consulate general office in San Diego. “It will be great for business and tourism.”

Avis’ announcement is “good news for tourists, as well as the maquiladoras ,” Max Schetter, senior vice president of the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce, said in reference to the assembly plants foreign companies are building south of the border.

“A lot of people want to drive across the border. The only negative is that there will be more cars coming across the border, making the (U.S. Customs station) lines longer.”

Dollar “has so far enjoyed the reputation as the company that actually does it,” Everett said. “The sales counters at Hertz and Avis used to send customers over to our counter, so I’m sure we’re going to lose some business. But maybe that’s what happened. . . . Avis was sending so many over to us that they decided to” allow travel into Mexico, he said.

With Avis deciding to allow travel to Mexico, “it’s pretty likely that others would be following suit,” said Forrest Baker, vice president of International Gateway Insurance, a Chula Vista-based company that is serving as a U.S.-based agent between Avis and Aseguradora Mexicana S.A., the state-owned Mexican insurance company that is underwriting the Avis insurance program.

“With this agreement, travel to Mexico will no longer be a no-no,” Baker said. “It will work for the tourist in town from New Hampshire . . . and the businessman going back and forth because of the increase of maquiladoras in Mexico.”