When you’re planning your trip, where does renting a vehicle fit into your plan? Surely this is one of the very last points. Many travelers start by looking for plane, train, or bus tickets. Afterward, they search for apartments and hotel rooms where they will stay. And the last thing they think about is that they also need to rent a car.
Many people completely forget about the early booking of a vehicle. They remember this before arriving, which forces them to stand in line for a long time at car rentals located at airports. Plus, many travelers rely on big brands, while local car rentals offer lower prices and shorter lines. This directly applies to the United Arab Emirates, where tourists can rent a car in Dubai without any long waits and start enjoying their vacation.
Well, if you’re used to planning your trip this way, you might want to reconsider your actions because you risk being left without a rental car for the duration of your vacation. In addition, you should also know that if you are used to renting a vehicle at the airport, then you increase your check by an average of 30%.
You should rewrite your list of things you need to do before traveling and place your vehicle reservation as close to the top as possible for several important reasons. The tourism industry has undergone dramatic changes over the past few years.
We’ll cover why booking a vehicle early should be one of the first things you need to do before your vacation.
High demand and shortage of vehicles
Many experienced travelers are well aware that when planning a trip, they need to hire a vehicle in advance to save money, rather than overpay for a last-minute booking. However, today, early booking is a must, since this is associated not only with saving money but also with the lack of cars in car rental fleets.
Four years ago, everything was calm until the global pandemic hit. Then the car rental industry faced a serious crisis, after which many small car rentals were forced to close. However, many car rental companies were able to survive these difficult years by selling some of the cars. Some big brands, such as Avis, were forced to get rid of more than two hundred thousand vehicles.
However, two years later, things started to look up. People, locked at home for several years, decided overnight to take advantage of open borders and began to travel with particular enthusiasm. This led to a new crisis since car rentals were no longer able to offer their services to customers to the same extent due to limited vehicle fleets.
Car rentals have begun to recover thanks to higher prices for services. Having noticed that customers continue to use their rental cars even at high prices, they have lost the motivation to increase the number of their rental cars.
Book a car in advance, and then do the rest
There is no point in going through the trouble of buying plane tickets, or booking a hotel when all the rental cars at your destination will be sold out. If you are not planning long road trips and you can easily get by without hiring a car, then you don’t need to change your strategy for planning your trip.
However, if you prefer to rent a car while traveling, you may want to reconsider your strategy. Rental car prices are now up about fifty percent from what they were just four years ago. This also becomes one of the determining factors.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll pay a fortune to book the vehicle. Nowadays, a large number of car rental companies have introduced an innovation that allows customers to book vehicles without a deposit. Therefore, if you want your vacation to go off without a hitch, you should bump up the car reservation clause in your travel plan.
Conclusion
Booking a vehicle for your trip at the last minute may result in you being left without a car at all. Car rental companies have sold off some of their fleets during the global pandemic, so the supply of car rentals has decreased significantly. Therefore, you should make your booking as early as possible to ensure that you can rent a car during your holiday.