Paris: After the long-locked months and curfew, Europeans hope to sunbathe and sand – just to find that the risk of their dream holidays turn into a nightmare because there are no rental cars available.
In many areas popular with tourist cars not available or subcompacts for rigid 500 euros ($ 600 per week).
Website Comparison of car rental shows how expensive renting a vehicle has become a tourist this summer.
According to Carigami, renting a car for a week this summer will make tourists again on average 364 euros compared to 277 euros two years ago.
For Italy, that number is 407 euros this summer compared to 250 euros in 2019.
In Spain, the average cost has surged to 263 euros from 185 euros.
According to other websites, Liligo, the cost of renting daily almost doubled on French Island Corsica.
In the city of Palma Resort on Mallorca Island Spain, the price of renting almost three times.
Today’s problems are a direct result of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Faced with the absence of clients, selling vehicles to raise cash makes a lot of understanding for car rental companies struggling to survive.
“Everyone drastically reduces their fleet,” said Europcar’s head, Caroline Parot.
Until spring, most companies still have a fleet about a third less than 2019, he said.
Car rental companies are used to regularly sell their vehicles and replace them, so rebuilding their inventory should not be a problem.
Unless a pandemic sending requests for consumer electronics soaring, creating semiconductor deficiencies, or chips, which are used not only on computers but more and more cars.
“The main contributor to the current challenge is a shortage of global chips, which has influenced the availability of new vehicles throughout the industry at the time of demand,” said a corporate spokesman.
It was said that he worked to get a new vehicle but that meanwhile shifted the car to better meet demand.
– There are no cars, try Van – “We’ve started warning people: If you want to come to Italy, who finally reopens, plans and books ahead,” said the Head of the Italian car rental firm association, Archive Massimiliano.
He said they worked hard to fulfill a surge in demand on vacation spots.
“But we have two major islands which are the main tourism destinations,” he said, which made it difficult to move the car, especially because the trip to Sardinia needed half a day.
“The ferry is full of people who bring their cars,” he added.
“Given the law of supply and demand, there is a risk that will have an impact on the price,” Archiattti said.
Increased demand is also seen leasing between individuals.
Getaround, a web platform that regulates such leases, said he had seen “a sharp increase in search and rentals” in the European market.
Since maybe more than 90 percent of the cars available on the platform have been rented on weekends, and many have been booked for most of the summer.
Getaround has used a surge in demand to expand the number of cities served.
For some people, their arrival cannot be fast enough.
Bruno Rondet, a 51-year-old Aeronautics technician, rented a car to attend his favorite English football club match, Brighton.
“Previously, to rent a car that I paid between 25 and 30 euros per day.
Today, this is more than 90 euros, it’s three times more expensive,” he said.
In the United States, where prices were shot higher during spring, tourists visiting Hawaii turning to rent vans.
In France, there are still cars, according to Jean-Philippe Doyen, who handles shared mobility at the Automobile professional national council.
“The client has a tendency to order at the last minute, even more in a rather uncertain situation,” he said.
They will often wait until only a few days before their trip, which means that the car rental company does not have a complete picture of the upcoming request, he added.
He said the business was recovering but income had not reached the pre-pandemic level because the trip was not fully unlimited.
European vacation: complicated and expensive car rentals
