Jucy Hotel Information

Brothers generally kick a ball around their backyard, or go surfing and then head their separate ways after college. Not the Alpe boys of Jucy Group.

Tim and Dan Alpe have known the vehicle hire business all their lives. Their dad used to own Maui campervans and they cleaned the vehicles for pocket money in their holidays.

They had rental hiring in their blood and a few years ago they joined forces and decided to launch their own brand – Jucy. Now they want it to be the biggest travel business in the South Pacific. They want to rubber stamp what Virgin did in Europe and the US. They have just zoomed through their ninth year in business.

"The first deal we did when we started Jucy was to purchase 35 Daewoo Lanos cars from the Auckland Hospital Board,’’ Tim Alpe says. ``We used to joke at the time that our greatest claim to fame was that we had the biggest single fleet of Daewoos outside South Korea. There is not much you can’t do in a Daewoo!"

"We were lucky that we started our business at the start of the summer season when it is very hard to find cars in Auckland. That meant that we were basically profitable after about three months trading. We also ran the business on the smell of an oily rag which meant that Dan and I basically did everything from reservations, customer pickups and cleaning the cars."

Jucy was born on September 12 2001 (not great timing as it was one day after 9/11) from a tiny office on The Strand in Parnell. The boys will always remember their start date. Some say size doesn’t matter, but in just a few years Jucy has one of the largest fleets in Australasia.

Their head office is in Auckland but their busiest branch is Christchurch Airport. It has been the busiest and most profitable from day one and it hasn’t taken Auckland long to see that they are now also loved by their fellow JAFAs.

"We have had some unusual requests in this business. A few years ago we had a guy who wanted to hire one of our larger campervans to use for a porno film. After careful consideration we declined as we didn’t know how the next person who hired the vehicle might take the news that it was previously an adult film set.

"When we started we had no idea what to call the company. We were in Italy and someone came up with the idea that we should call it Ezy Rentals. Unfortunately as a result of our commercial naivety we forgot to trademark or protect the name. What that meant was the bigger we got the more our competitors started using our name in their advertising as well as setting up second brands. The word Easy is also impossible to protect as the serial entrepreneur Stelios from easyJet basically owns it around the world.

"I approached a very funky brand company called Radiation about our problem and expected them to say we were too far down the track to rebrand. They of course said we had no choice if we wanted to make our business a leading brand in the tourism industry. Between the two of us JUCY was born and we have never looked back. We also made sure that we trademarked the Jucy brand around the world from day one," Tim says.

The brothers enjoy working alongside each other. They work well together as Dan’s strengths are Tim’s weakness and vice versa and they can shoot from the hip without offending each other.

"We both love the Virgin brand and use it as the example for Jucy to strive to achieve similar brand recognition. We obviously have a long way to go, however we truly believe that the Jucy brand is going to become a household name in our part of the world. Our goal is to have a brand that is next generation and supports our desire to reinvent our somewhat complacent industry."

For Jucy, growth in Australia has been unbelievable. They have been blown away by the way the Jucy brand has been accepted in Australia and can’t wait to see how the next 12 months goes. Both their general managers in Australia are under 24 years old! Their energy has been infectious.