Self-drive car rental prices double on Tet holiday
The rental price for sedans is usually 800,000 VND/day, but now it has increased to 1.5-1.7 million VND/day. The price is high but rental units are still full because of high demand.
Every Lunar New Year, people's demand for self-driving car rental increases more than usual. This is also considered the best time for business people in this service.
According to Mr. Truong, the owner of a self-drive car rental business in the Nam Tu Liem area (Hanoi), about a week before Tet, the number of customers asking to rent cars increased significantly. Many customers had made deposits to rent cars long in advance so as not to miss out on cars during Tet.
The high demand has also caused car prices to increase significantly compared to normal days. For example, Mr. Truong's company is currently renting Kia Cerato cars for 22 million VND/10 days, not renting individually or for less than the above number of days.
On normal days, a car rental business in Dong Da area (Hanoi) has enough cars for customers to rent according to different needs, but near Tet, all available cars are fully booked, even though prices have increased significantly.
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| Small cars like Kia Morning are sought after by many people. |
During off-peak days, this company rents cars for VND500,000/24h/250km or more, depending on the type of car. However, during Tet, these cars are not rented by the day but in 10-day packages.
A normal Kia Morning costs 500,000 VND/24 hours to rent, increasing to 8 million VND for 10 days.
For some sedan models, it is easy to rent a car for 800,000 VND/day on normal days, but currently the rental price is about 15-17 million VND/10 days, which is twice as expensive.
The owner of a self-drive car business said that most of his time these days is spent answering the phone and turning down customers who want to rent cars, because all the cars were signed contracts long before Tet. "Customers book cars early to get better prices compared to the days before Tet. Therefore, we have no cars to rent," he added.
Small cars such as Kia Morning and Hyundai Grand i10 are sought after because they have lower rental prices and are suitable for family use. However, these are also the first cars to sell out. Although they are low, the rental prices for these cars during Tet have doubled compared to normal days.
For units that still have cars waiting for customers, the rental contract price at this time will be at least 2 times higher than for customers who book cars early, like the case of the Kia Cerato mentioned above.
The owner of a car sharing business said that if customers cannot rent a car during Tet, they can use transportation services. If calculated, the cost may not be much more expensive than renting a car to drive themselves, while avoiding other problems such as accidents or theft.