Rental car companies scramble to meet demand from overseas visitors

Tuesday, 2 February 2016

About 80 per cent of the 120,000 rental vehicle hires in February will be to overseas visitors.

A record number of overseas visitors has left some rental car companies virtually booked solid as Chinese New Year brings an influx of visitors from Asia.

Barry Kidd, chief executive of the Rental Vehicle Association New Zealand, said a year ago the industry thought peak season hires would hit 100,000 a month, but now estimated they would reach at least 120,000 for both January and February.

Growth in independent holiday makers is boosting rental vehicle business.

'It could be as high as 145,000, and 80 per cent of them would be overseas drivers. We're operating at pretty near full capacity.'

Kidd said visitors who had not bothered to book a rental vehicle might have to compromise, especially if they wanted it for several weeks.

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'They may not get their first choice. If they're wanting a vehicle for a month and they haven't pre-booked, they may not be able to get it from the same company for the full month; they may have to shop around.'

Rental companies had also taken on extra staff to speed up grooming times. 'Vehicles are being cleaned almost as people are getting out of them because they want to grab the vehicles and turn them around as quickly as possible.'

General manager of GO Rentals, James Dalglish, said his company had added more than 700 new vehicles to its fleet to cope with demand.

'We've got some periods of time we're verging on sold out on all our car classes. We have a spike of arrivals over the next few days, and 7 to 8 February we're absolutely chock-a-block.'

As well as the overall increase in tourist numbers, he said the average vehicle rental period had risen to seven days plus.

'We're seeing the return of longer haul travellers from Asia, the UK, the Americas and Europe, and these people are coming for longer periods of time. When times were tough during the GFC (global financial crisis), we were relying on the Australians and Kiwis and they were travelling for much shorter hire periods.'

Tourism New Zealand figures showed that changing travel habits were having an impact too. It expected about 50,000 visitors from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong over the next fortnight for Chinese New Year, with more opting out of group bus tours.

The proportion of Chinese visitors travelling independently was 31 per cent in the year to November, well up on the 17 per cent who chose to 'freedom travel' two years earlier.

Hertz country manager Mark Righton said his company was heavily booked in the South Island and February was always busy because peak tourist season coincided with the resumption of local corporate travel following the summer break.

'With both these markets in full swing it typically makes it very tight for rental cars.'

Kidd said the tourism boom had attracted more players into the rental vehicle market. The Rental Vehicle Association had 80 members, up from about 50 two years ago.

'There are a lot of smaller operators who are not members . . . It's very competitive and everyone is chasing the business.'

International rental companies not currently operating in New Zealand were showing an interest in setting up here, and Australian company East Coast Rentals now had a presence at Auckland Airport.