Sunday June 20, 12 noon: a score of tourists queue at the entrance of a rent a car of ses Variades to rent a vehicle. Wednesday June 23, 9 am: The same business just opened their door and there are already 10 people waiting. An employee describes the situation by phone and within moments, clients are demanding to be served. The last few days are “Much better than in 2019. We are at full capacity, we are overwhelmed.” And why if there is no British tourism? “Because the big companies have hardly brought any cars and we, the little ones, can’t keep up. And we have more expensive prices than a year ago.
Car rental in Eivissa. | PITCHER
The president of the Pimeef rent-a-car association, Juan Cárdenas, acknowledges that “things are going well now, but at 50% of what it used to be, in other words, in normal conditions”, not with the pandemic. And better, he assures us, is what is to come: “In July we hope that, if British tourists arrive (we know it won’t be en masse but in a certain number) and the hotels start to fill up, however few there are (even if they are only one-day bookings), it will be better and we will even recover the pulse of two years ago”.
Cautious in his statements, Cárdenas assures that he does not want to “throuw caution to the wind, but the forecasts for July and August are very good. The sector is expected to recover then”. Now they are not complaining, despite the fact that “British tourism has not yet arrived and only half of the hotels have opened … But surely by the end of this month and during July everything will improve”, he predicts.
Of course, they face the season with a fleet reduced “to half” than that of 2019: “We have had limitations. For example, it has not been possible to buy new cars, both due to financing problems and because there is no stock due to the fact that the brands have problems with the supply of chips, semiconductors and other materials in their factories, so there are fewer passenger cars available. ‘
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.