Car rentals in popular holiday destinations are more than one and a half times more expensive than they were before the coronavirus outbreak. If you want to rent a car this summer vacation, you will have the biggest loss in Italy: there you pay more than twice as much as three years ago. This is evidenced by research conducted by the travel organization De Vakantiediscounter.
Data from bookings made with the travel organization shows that eight days of car rental is now (on average) one and a half times more expensive than in 2019.
The data looked at car rental prices in eight major vacation destinations. In particular, people traveling during the summer holidays will feel a rental car in their wallets, according to research. In 2019, the average price for an eight-day car rental was 274 euros, compared to an average of 443 euros in 2022. This means a price increase of at least 62 percent.
Italy is at the top, Malta is cheaper
In Italy, car rental prices rose as fast as they could during the summer holidays. Here the eight-day rent rose from 312 to 720 euros. Malta is the most beneficial; Here you pay “only” 248 euros for a week. In Cyprus, the average rent doubled (from 224 to 448 euros), while the price of car rental in Curaçao rose by ten percent (it was 328 euros, now 360), versus a whopping 68 percent increase in Portugal. In 2019, I paid an average of 304 euros there, and now the average rent is 512 euros.
Outside of the summer holidays, there is a less violent price increase of 53 percent on average. In 2019, I generally paid around €194 for eight days in the low season. This year 293 euros. However, car rental rates are the lowest in Malta (176€) and Turkey (184€), and it is remarkable that Turkey is the only country where the rental price is currently lower than it was in 2019. Even in the low season you pay higher The price in Italy is 480 euros for eight days. This is an average of 114% more than it was three years ago.
Explanation of the increase
Although the current high inflation certainly plays a role in increasing rents, the coronavirus has had the biggest impact, according to the research. In particular, many rental companies entered survival mode in 2020, selling rental cars, for example, to continue paying employees.
Once there is a budget to expand the fleet again, the rental companies will face another hurdle to choose from. Due to a shortage of computer chips, the auto industry is still struggling with extremely long delivery times for new models.
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