Better than 2021, but well below the level of 2019: this is what we can take away from the summer report on the car rental market published this Thursday by Carigami.
Indeed, the car rental comparator evokes an increase in reservations of 9.5% compared to last year, but highlights a still very significant difference with the levels recorded in 2019, the last year before the covid-19 pandemic, around -60%.
Prices doubled compared to 2019
Main reasons: the scarcity of vehicles, which limits the rental offer, and an average price of 529 euros, 48% more in France and abroad than in 2021, which pushes more and more tourists to opt for rental between individuals.
Please note that this price includes the rental and the options and insurance contracted, but not the fuel budget. An important point when pump prices are currently much higher than in the summers of 2021 and 2019, which has also encouraged the rental of hybrid and 100% electric models.
In this ranking, France is doing quite well with prices going up “only” 33% compared to last year, that is, an average cost for a week’s rental this summer at almost 500 euros, against 377 euros in 2021.
But it is especially compared to 2019 that the price increase impresses, with the price more than doubling (+115%). Three years ago, the average price of renting a car in France in the summer was 233 euros.
In Italy, from 212 to 588 euros
In some destinations, the increase is even higher. In Italy, from 212 euros on average in 2019, the car rental week had risen to 435 euros last year (+35%) and to 588 euros this summer 2022 (+177% compared to 2019).
Spain continues to be the cheapest destination among the destinations chosen by Carigami, but with a strong increase also in the average price this summer: from 142 euros in 2019, you had to pay 276 euros this year (+159%).
“As happened in previous years, Spain continues to fall in the rankings. Given the increase in prices in this emblematic low cost rental destination, consumers have preferred to turn to Greece, Croatia or even South Africa, which turns out to be a road trip destination at affordable prices (although it is the southern winter), and the Nordic countries despite traditionally very high prices”, stresses the Carigami press release.
Overseas holiday boom
While it accounted for 45.2% of rentals in the summer of 2021, France remains the top destination, but only accounted for one in four car rentals this year. The United States and Canada, whose borders were still closed last summer due to the health crisis, are the second and fourth destinations respectively.
In this context of more distant destinations and prices on the rise, the comparator thus notes an increase in anticipation to reserve a car, from 32 days in 2021, to 49 days on average this summer.
Nice, champion of France for the most expensive rental
In France, too, car rental prices have risen sharply. In Paris, the leading destination in volume of rented vehicles, for example, we went from 252 euros per week in 2019 to 544 euros this summer, 116% more.
But it is in Nice where we find the biggest increase and the highest average price: 598 euros a week this summer, that is, a multiplication by almost 3 compared to the 2019 price of 194 euros.
In Corsica, where you had to have a budget of about 480 euros per week, Figari strangely exceeds Ajaccio and Bastia in the number of rented vehicles, a first. Carigami’s explanation: “a fleet of available vehicles simply better calibrated for demand.
Source: BFM TV
