Car Rental Shortage Forecast in 2021

After more than a year and a half of a pandemic that almost paralyzed the entire world, people and businesses are now beginning to rehearse a recovery that is full of difficulties.



One of these difficulties is an act that seems so simple, but nowadays it is surprisingly difficult and in some cases almost impossible: arranging the availability of a rental car for holidays abroad.

All over the world you can find reports of amazing cases, from the complete filling of available car reservations to the request for rental of private cars in certain places.
In some places in the United States, the prices requested for a rental car reached unimaginable prices, in the order of $ 500 per day!

This happens all over the world and Portugal is no exception. In the Algarve, the destination of excellence for millions of foreign tourists every year, the possibility of price increases is already beginning to be considered and it is even feared that there may be a closing in reserves due to the fact of full filling of the fleets of rental cars.

The causes of this phenomenon may be difficult to accept but are easy to understand. The year 2020, the year when the pandemic began, and practically the entire first half of the year 2021, the world was almost completely stopped and leisure travel practically did not exist. All sectors related to the tourism industry were faced with enormous difficulties with the lack of customers and those companies that managed to survive had to divest and practice a very controlled management.

Many rent-a-car companies have not resisted and the example of the failure of one of the large American companies that alone causes almost a million rental cars to disappear from the market is known.

The car rental companies that survived had to sell part of their fleets to endure the crossing of the desert and try to be alive for the recovery of tourism trips.
It was then that the opening up of cross-border travel that brought companies the hope of a business recovery was also accompanied by another unexpected difficulty: the difficulty of buying new cars to increase their rental car fleets.

This is because car manufacturers are having a hard time keeping up with demand due to a global shortage of microchips. That's making things tough on car rental companies. They sold off a quarter to a half of their fleets last year when travel crashed because of the pandemic and now that they need to buy cars to replace the ones they sold they can't because there is a lack of new cars for sale or they are too expensive.

It is happening all over the world and Portugal is no exception. At a time when many tourists are expected to return, finally after a year and a half, to enjoy a restful holiday in the sun, sea and the beautiful gastronomy of the Algarve, the concern is now the possibility that there will be a car hire shortage for everyone.

So at Portugal Cars we advise our clients and friends to take care of their rental car reservations as soon as possible. If you wait too late you may encounter a situation of rising prices or even a complete failure of the rental car for your holidays in the Algarve.