AVIS Europe is planning two pan-European call centres to be based in the UK and France. Mark McCafferty, chief executive of Avis Europe, said: 'By consolidating our individual country call centres we will be able to provide an even more effective car rental reservation service that will deliver substantial first-class service across all our customer groups.'

The first centre will open in Manchester in the spring and will handle an estimated 50,000 calls a week from the UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. All calls from southern Europe will be directed to the French call centre, which will open by 2000.