Sunny Cars expects rental car prices to fall

Countercyclical price development: Last year, the prices of many travel components rose - but not in the rental car sector. Although the rental car provider Sunny Cars recorded significantly stronger demand for holiday cars, it predicts prices will continue to fall in 2024. At least for everyone who decides to book early.

The turn of the year is approaching, and with it the start of the traditional early bird season. According to Sunny Cars, this should also be used. The holiday car was already very popular in 2023 after the end of travel bans and vehicle shortages. The rental car expert expects strong demand again in 2024.

“The fleet sizes of our partners will most likely be sufficient to meet high demand. However, there can of course be bottlenecks in individual destination areas at peak times,” explains Kai Sannwald, managing partner of Sunny Cars.

But he doesn't just see good signs in terms of availability. The price level also gives consumers reason to be happy. After a cost explosion in the spring and summer of 2022, the level stabilized in the last financial year. “An extreme example: In June 2022, the average price per rental was around 650 euros – a year later it was around 500 euros. The reason for this was that there were too few vehicles on the market,” says Kai Sannwald. While the annual average per rental this season was 476 euros, this value will continue to fall. “We therefore recommend that holidaymakers reserve their holiday car well in advance in order to secure a reasonable price.”

A look at the last financial year of Sunny Cars, which ended on October 31, 2023, shows how popular holiday cars were in the past travel season. The company recorded over 785.000 bookings. The booking volume significantly exceeds the previous years 2020/2021 (342.000 bookings) and 2021/2022 (600.000 bookings). Only in 2018/2019 was the record number of 835.000 reservations even higher. Overall, holiday cars booked through Sunny Cars were most frequently used in September and October 2023. Almost 200.000 bookings were made for this travel period. The most popular rental car countries included Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the USA. This means that the top destinations remain unchanged compared to the previous year. South Africa, Germany, France, Canada and Curaçao also remain consistently in the top ten.