“This year I planned to go to Dali on the second day of the Lunar New Year, but I asked several car rental companies and homestays and they were all booked.” One week before the Spring Festival, Tang Ruo (pseudonym), who works in Beijing, started to check the Dali travel guide, “This Spring Festival Dali is so popular, there are holidays, but there is no way to rent a car.” Tang Ruo told Times Finance.
In addition to Dali, Yunnan, the car rental market in popular tourist destinations such as Sanya and Chongqing is also booming. “The car rental market is booming during the Spring Festival. All the cars in the store have been reserved long before New Year’s Eve, and I don’t have a car to drive myself.” The person in charge of Wudu Travel, a car rental business in Chongqing, told Times Finance. According to data from Ctrip, during the Spring Festival, bookings for car rental and yacht-related travel products in Sanya both increased by more than 200% year-on-year.
This year’s Spring Festival, travel needs such as going home for the New Year and traveling are released intensively, further boosting the car rental market. Major car rental companies such as China Travel have started warming up more than a month in advance: not only has the order volume doubled, but the rent during the Chinese New Year has also risen. “The price changes every day. The closer the holiday is, the more expensive the rent will be. But even so, the market is still hot. The 20 or 30 luxury cars in our store have been fully booked as early as the beginning of January.” The above-mentioned person in charge told Times Finance .
It is hard to find a car in Sanya and Dali
“I rented a car on the 29th day of the Chinese New Year, because it was only a two-day short-term rental, and Yihi Car Rental directly showed that there was no car, but on Shenzhou Car Rental , the convertibles I wanted to rent were all sports car series, and the price was very expensive. The daily rent is more than 2,000 yuan, or even more than 3,000 yuan.” Speaking of car rental during the Spring Festival in Hainan, passenger Zhang Feng (pseudonym) directly said, “It’s hard to find a car.”
Since December 2022, Hainan’s tourism industry has ushered in a full recovery. Tourists from all over the country flock to Sanya. During the Spring Festival, the number of tourists in Sanya has surged. “Half of the people in the circle of friends are in Sanya.” In Sanya, renting a car for self-driving and sailing on a yacht have become popular choices for tourists. According to the “2023 Spring Festival Tourism Summary Report” released by Ctrip, during the Spring Festival, the bookings of car rental and yacht-related tourism products in Sanya increased by more than 200% year-on-year.
The person in charge of renting a car said in an interview with the Southern Metropolis Daily, “At the beginning of December 2022, the supply of car dealers in Sanya was in short supply. At the same time, the hot holiday market in Sanya also drove the enthusiasm for car rental in surrounding cities. Hainan Qionghai, Danzhou Car rental orders in cities such as , Wanning, and Lingshui have increased by more than 150%.”
Coincidentally, the popular TV series “To a Windy Place”, which was filmed in Dali, has driven Dali’s cultural tourism to continue to flourish. As early as January 16, several Dali stores on Yihi Car Rental showed that the vehicles from January 19 to 21 were fully rented. Tang Ruo told Times Finance, “During the Spring Festival, there is no car with a daily rent of less than 300 yuan in Dali. After a few days of hesitation and price comparison, many popular models are already fully rented.”
At the same time, the rise of skiing fever has also made self-driving ski tours in Xinjiang very popular. Zhan Hong (pseudonym), who took advantage of the Spring Festival holiday to visit Xinjiang, felt lucky, “I rented a car two weeks in advance, and there were not many cars at that time.”
Rent a car two weeks in advance for a self-driving tour in Xinjiang. Image source: Photo by Zhan Hong
In fact, as early as this year’s New Year’s Day, the overall number of car rental orders across the country has increased year-on-year. According to the 2023 New Year’s Day travel report released by eHi Mobility Research Institute, some high-tier cities, popular tourist provinces, and tourist cities have performed well, and it is even hard to find a car. Among them, the orders of Xishuangbanna increased nearly 7 times year-on-year, Liupanshui increased 6 times year-on-year, and many tourist destinations such as Mount Emei increased 4 times year-on-year. In addition, orders for off-site vehicles and stores in transportation hubs both soared.
Rent doubles, luxury cars boom
In the context of high demand, the car rental market during the Spring Festival has come out of the hot trend of “rising rent and extending lease term”.
Times Finance found that online platforms such as Shenzhou Car Rental, Ctrip, eHi Car Rental, and Wukong Car Rental saw a significant increase in car rental prices during the Spring Festival this year.
Take eHi Car Rental as an example. When renting a Volkswagen Tange in Kunming, the average rent from New Year’s Eve (January 21) to the seventh day (January 27) is 513 yuan per day. From the eighth day (January 28) From 361 yuan per day to mid-February, the average daily rental price dropped to 187 yuan per day.
Not only the price of economical scooters with a normal rent of 100 yuan has risen significantly, but the rent of luxury models has also risen. On the Shenzhou car rental platform, I rented an Audi A6L in Changsha. The rent on January 18 and 19 was 728 yuan per day. After that, the rent exceeded 1,000 yuan. Rent from January 18 to January 28, plus basic service fees and other expenses, the total rent is 11,560 yuan. And if you rent from February 18 to February 28, the rent is only 5009 yuan. In other words, compared with the daily price, the rent for the Spring Festival is twice as expensive.
It is worth mentioning that luxury models and ultra-luxury models are also popular. “Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz G, Lamborghini and other luxury cars have a daily rental price of close to 3,000 yuan during the Spring Festival, and they were all booked as early as early January.” The aforementioned person in charge of Wudu Travel told Times Finance. “Luxury and ultra-luxury models are very popular during the Spring Festival, and the rent and order volume of our stores have increased a lot compared with last year.”
In addition to the price increase, the major car rental platforms have also tacitly adjusted the rental period during the Spring Festival. On eHi Car Rental, Times Finance tried to book a vehicle for January 23-January 25, and the pop-up window on the platform displayed “January 23 to January 27, 2023 is the peak period for car use, you can try to extend the rental period Extended to more than three days.” On the Shenzhou car rental page, it is also reminded that during the Spring Festival (January 18-January 27) in 2023, orders for less than 3 days have not been opened.
In addition to online car rental platforms, offline car rental merchants have also adjusted rents and lease terms. “During the Spring Festival, the minimum rental period is five days. For some long-term rental users, we will have additional full discount subsidies.” A car rental business in Xiamen told Times Finance.
Now that the Spring Festival holiday is coming to an end, car rental rents have begun to “diving”. Times Finance interviewed a number of car rental merchants. They said that the market of the car rental industry fluctuated greatly due to the market supply and demand. I am optimistic and looking forward to this year’s “May 1st” holiday and the overall market in 2023.
This article is from the WeChat public account “Times Finance APP” (ID: tf-app) , author: He Qing, 36 Krypton is authorized to publish.
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Event Tracking
- 2023-01-28Shenzhou Car Rental released travel data for the 2023 Spring Festival: the demand for car rental has surpassed that of the 2019 Spring Festival
- 2021-07-06Shenzhou car rental will be privatized and delisted on July 8
- 2021-03-15Shenzhou Car Rental’s revenue last year was 6.124 billion yuan, down 20.4%, with a net loss of 4.163 billion yuan
- 2021-03-05 New progress in the privatization of car rental in China, and it is expected to submit an application for delisting to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange around July
- 2020-12-03Shenzhou Car Rental plans to issue US$175 million convertible bonds
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