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Car Rental Market Trends under Coronavirus Covid19 – 2nd edition, from 15 to 31 of March 2020

In these difficult times for the tourism industry in general and for the car rental industry, WeYield has decided to aggregate anonymized data from the various clients we have per geographical zone.

Emmanuel Scuto
April 8, 2020

The goal is to share some key performance indicators for the months of April and July 2020 from our WeYield Apps. In this second edition, we compared the indicators between two reference dates (15th and 31st of March 2020).

These data have no statistical mean due to limited set of companies but more to step back and enlarge the perspective to other areas on the planet. Hope this helps.

Take care.

APRIL 2020 :

  • Utilization is declining at -23pts vs last year and Easter-Spring breaks will see a major fall in volume (-48% in on-rent days vs last year). Utilization appears to have increased +5pts in past two weeks but this is due to a 32% drop in fleet.
  • Fleet is down by -10% vs last year.
  • RPD is down 42% vs last year and it has continues to drop futher over the last two weeks by -31%
  • Conclusion: demand has not come due to the lock-down. Prices have been decreased (along with fleet) but this has not generated demand which is normal in this lockdown period where nobody can go anywhere.

JULY 2020 :

  • Utilization is still small but under a slight acceleration vs last year, +6pts and has continued to picked-up quickly over the last two weeks (+17pts), however this is explained by the -39% reduction in fleet size (-7% vs last year)
  • Demand is in advance significantly +17% but down -10% in past two weeks.
  • RPD is falling significantly by -36% for July versus last year but up by 9% in last two weeks (although less than same interval last year, where RPD rose by 39%)
  • Conclusion: Keep calm, do not panic dropping your prices.

APRIL 2020 :

  • Fleet is the same as last year with no observed changes in past two weeks.
  • Utilization is down significantly by -46pts vs last year. Easter-Spring breaks will see a fall in volume (-74% in on-rent days vs last year) and last two weeks has shown a -59% decrease (but same interval last year saw +29%)
  • RPD is down by -14% vs last year but we note it is up by 5% in past two weeks while it was only up 3% during the same interval last year.
  • Conclusion: Demand will not come due to the new lock-down that has just started. Keep the prices up to avoid any revenue spoilage that will not generate new demand anyway.

JULY 2020 :

  • Fleet for July is decreasing by -3% vs last year with only a -1% change in past two weeks.
  • Utilization is still small at 17% down -5pts vs last year with only a minor +1pts increase in past two weeks (+3pts gain in same interval last year)
  • Demand is down significantly by -24% vs last year, but we have seen only a -1% decrease in past two weeks (the same two week period last year saw a 14% increase). – RPD is down by -15% vs last year, with -1% in past two weeks vs 0% change in previous year.
  • Conclusion: keep calm and maintain current price levels. There are no reasons to decrease price. Operators keeps doing the same mistakes over and over again. Like nothing is learnt from the past events. We are sad.

APRIL 2020 :

  • Fleet has been reduced a lot vs last year at -8%. And this situation continues it appears to have decreased more by 5% in past two weeks.
  • Utilization is down by 5pts vs last year and Easter-Spring breaks will see a major fall in volume (-28% in on-rent days vs last year). We observed a 10% drop in past two weeks, while we saw a 5% gain in the same 2 week period last year
  • RPD has dropped by 16% vs last year and by a further -2% in past two weeks, versus a minor loss (-5%) in RPD in same period last year
  • Conclusion: Demand is decreasing, further price drops are not necessary, as they are unlikely to stimulate more demand during lockdown. Keep calm.

JULY 2020 :

  • Fleet has been reduced vs last year by -14%. However up by 7% in past two weeks, same as equivalent period last year.
  • Utilization is still small at 10% and 1pt down versus last year and and the previous two weeks.
  • Demand is down by -18% versus last year, and down -8% in past two weeks, the previous year had seen a 5% increase for the same two week interval.
  • RPD is down slightly versus last year at -1% at 31€ but increased by 2% in past two weeks.
  • Conclusion: It appears that Summer is under control in prices while the demand is improving vs a very bad beginning of March 2020.

APRIL 2020 :

  • Utilization is down by 32pts vs last year and Easter-Spring breaks will see a major fall in volume (-66% in on-rent days vs last year), we have seen a -41% decrease in the last two weeks, while it had picked up by +41% over the same two-week res period of last year.
  • Fleet has increased vs last year at +2% (-1% change in last two weeks, same interval last year had seen a 5% rise).
  • RPD is up by 17% vs last year and saw an increase of 5% in the last two weeks.
  • Conclusion : Demand will not come due to the new lock-down that has just started. Keep the prices up to avoid any revenue spoilage that will not generate any new demand.

JULY 2020 :

  • Utilization is still small at 10% and down by 6pts versus last year, the last two weeks saw a decrease by -1pt, the same as the equivalent period the previous year.
  • Fleet is up by 7% versus last year for July, with +1% change in past two weeks.
  • Demand is down -30% versus last year with a drop of -6% in past two weeks.
  • RPD is at a good level at 23€ with a nice +14% vs last year proving the calm of operators for upcoming high season. However, we note already a slight but moderate reduction of RPD by -1% in two weeks (but it was +14% last year during the same interval).
  • Conclusion: Keep calm and maintain current price levels. When the virus is defeated, we anticipate a major reservation flow. Be ready at a good price.

APRIL 2020 :

  • Fleet has decreased vs last year by -13% (-3% change in two weeks, last year saw a -2% decrease in fleet).
  • Utilization is currently at 17%, down -16 pts vs last year. Easter-Spring breaks will be a major fall in volume (-56% in on-rent days vs last year) and last two weeks has shown a decrease of -17%.
  • RPD is down at 13€ significantly by -38% vs last year and we note that it has gone down by -17% in past two weeks (while it was up 25% during the same interval last year).
  • Conclusion: demand will not come due to the new lock-down that has just started. Keep the prices up to avoid any revenue spoilage that will not generate any new demand.

JULY 2020 :

  • Fleet for July is decreasing by -17% with -2% decrease in past two weeks.
  • Demand is down significantly by -41% vs last year, with no change in the past two weeks vs +12% in same 2 week inverval last year.
  • Utilization is still small at 16% down -7pts vs last year with only a minor +1pt increase in past two weeks (3 pts gain in same interval last year).
  • RPD is up by 9% vs last year although it did decrease by -2% in the past two weeks (last year same interval saw 2% increase).
  • Conclusion: we can note that operators are taking significant cost reduction in capacity vs last year. RPD is good and nobody has started to drop the prices down yet.

APRIL 2020 :

  • Fleet has been reduced a bit vs last year at -5% with no significant change in fleet in last two weeks (+2%).
  • Utilization has increased by +1pt vs last year and Easter-Spring breaks are still showing demand vs last year, but down significantly by 38% in past two weeks.
  • RPD is unfortunately down by 32% versus last year, with no change in past two weeks.
  • Conclusion: Demand is dropping, further price drops are unlikely to stimulate demand. When the virus is defeated, we anticipate a major reservation flow. Be ready at a good price

JULY 2020 :

  • Fleet has been reduced significantly vs last year by -14%. Minor observed fleet changes in past two weeks (+2%).
  • Utilization is up by 3pts versus last year and down -6pts in past two weeks.
  • Demand is in advance by 10% vs last year but significantly down in past 2 weeks (-36%).
  • RPD is however decreasing at -17% vs last year but up by 10% in last two weeks, comparatively we saw a small 7% increase in same period last year.
  • Conclusion: We observe slight price increases, despite a slowing demand. Be ready at a good price
Published by
Emmanuel Scuto
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Expert in Revenue Management and Pricing in the Car Rental industry for 20 years, I aim to share my optimization experience with our customers throughout the world. I am specialized in revenue maximization, pricing strategy, yield management, reporting based on AI.

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