Rental cars in popular holiday destinations are more than one and a half times more expensive than before the coronavirus outbreak. If you want to rent a car this summer, you will lose the most in Italy: there you pay more than twice as much as three years ago. This is apparent from research by travel organization De Vakantiediscounter.
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Data from bookings made with the travel organization shows that eight days of car rental is now (on average) more than one and a half times as expensive as in 2019. Rental prices for a car at eight important holiday destinations were looked at. Especially people who travel during the summer holidays will feel the rental car in their wallets, according to the research. In 2019, the average price for eight days of car rental was 274 euros, compared to an average of 443 euros in 2022. That is a price increase of no less than 62 percent.
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Italy at the top, Malta the cheapest
In Italy, the prices of a rental car rose the fastest during the summer holidays. There the rent for eight days rose from 312 to 720 euros. Malta is the most advantageous; you pay ‘only’ 248 euros. In Cyprus, the average rent doubled (from 224 to 448 euros), while the price of a rental car in Curaçao rose by ten percent (was 328 euros, now 360), compared to a whopping 68 percent increase in Portugal. In 2019 you paid an average of 304 euros there, now the average rent is 512 euros.
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Outside the summer holidays there is a less violent price increase of 53 percent on average. In 2019 you generally paid around 194 euros for eight days in the low season. This year it is 293 euros. Even then, the car rental prices are lowest in Malta (176 euros) and Turkey (184 euros), whereby it is striking that Turkey is the only country where the rental price is currently lower than in 2019. Even in the low season you pay the top price in Italy , namely 480 euros for eight days. That is an average of 114% more than three years ago.
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Explanation for the increase
Although the current high inflation certainly plays a role in the rise in rents, the corona virus has had the most impact, according to the research. Many rental companies went into survival mode – especially in 2020 – selling rental cars, for example, to be able to continue paying staff.
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As soon as there is a budget to expand the fleet again, rental companies will have another obstacle to choose from. Due to the shortage of computer chips, the car industry is still struggling with extremely long delivery times for new models.
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