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In recent years, with the rapid growth of the national economy and the continuous improvement of residents' living standards, people's requirements for quality of life have gradually improved. When it comes to mobility, more and more young people are choosing to travel. In addition to the popular online car- ride-hailing, car rental and self-driving have also begun to be accepted by young people, becoming one of the main ways for young people to travel on holidays and visit relatives and friends.
On February 10, China's leading car rental service provider Shenzhou Car Rental released the "2022 Spring Festival Travel Big Data Report". The report shows that with the normalization and refinement of epidemic prevention and control policies, the current holiday travel mode of young people is also subtly changing, based on the consideration of travel safety and privacy, car rental and self-driving has gradually become the first choice for young people to return home and travel during the Spring Festival. Affected by this, the Spring Festival car rental market is even more "difficult to find a car", the vehicle occupancy rate increased by 22% year-on-year, of which more than 160 cities performed better than expected, and the number of cities with high occupancy rates increased by nearly 40% compared with last year.
01
In the post-epidemic era, self-driving has become the first choice for people to travel
In the face of the severe situation of epidemic prevention and control, more and more people have begun to pay attention to their own travel methods. In the post-epidemic era, in order to avoid reducing contact with others, most people choose to travel by car.
According to iResearch consulting data, after the normalization of domestic epidemic prevention and control, 64.9% of people are more inclined to travel by car in the choice of travel mode; at the same time, in terms of travel precautions, about 60% of people are more concerned about the hygiene, disinfection and safety of travel tools when traveling, and about 45% of people will consider the spatial privacy and independence of travel tools.
02
The number of car drivers in the country has reached 444 million, and it is better to buy a car than to rent a car
Judging from the data in recent years, although the number of car ownership and car drivers in the mainland is growing steadily, and the former is growing faster, from the overall number, the number of car drivers is still much higher than the national car ownership. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Public Security, at the end of 2021, the number of cars in the country will be 302 million, but the number of car drivers in the country will reach 444 million, and there is still a large gap between the number of motor vehicles and the number of motor vehicle drivers.
Although, with the continuous development of new energy vehicles, the price of vehicles is getting cheaper and cheaper, and more and more people are buying vehicles. However, a car with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars at every turn also deters some people who are eager to have a car. According to the 47th Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet Network by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the number of internet users on the mainland at the end of 2020 was 989 million, but the proportion of internet users with a personal monthly income of less than 5,000 yuan accounted for 70.7%.
Therefore, for the majority of netizens, the importance of whether to own a car has also begun to decline. According to McKinsey's 2016 China Auto Consumer Report, Chinese consumers' enthusiasm for cars has begun to wane, with 60% of consumers believing that cars are no longer status symbols, and about 40% of consumers believing that owning a car is not so important. At the same time, consumers will also consider short-term car rental (40%), long-term car rental (34%) or car sharing (26%) to meet their car needs.
03
Residents of first-tier new first-tier cities are still the main force of car rental
For a long time, the first-tier and new first-tier cities have been areas with large population flows and dense floating populations. Therefore, compared with second-, third- and fourth-tier cities, the demand for car rentals for residents in first-tier and new first-tier cities remains high. According to Analysys analysis data, the proportion of car rental users in first-tier and new first-tier cities will reach 63% in 2021, which is the main force of car rental.
But at the same time, the proportion of users in second-tier cities and below has increased significantly, with the proportion of users in 2021 increasing by 24.6% compared with 2019; among them, the proportion of second-tier city car rental users has the fastest growth, with an increase of 10.94% in two years, rising from 8.5% in 2019 to 19.4% in 2021.
04
App car rental has become a new fashion, accounting for more than 50% of the use rate
Different from previous years, due to the needs of epidemic prevention and control, fewer and fewer people go to car rental stores to make on-site reservations, often through car rental platforms or Apps, accounting for 55.1%. In addition, about 30% of car rental users book car rentals through third-party platforms or by phone, accounting for 17.7% and 13.1% respectively.
05
Car rental needs are changing, and users first consider performance and safety
Performance and safety are the most important travel demands for car rental users. According to iResearch data, 55% of car rental users pay attention to the performance and safety of the car when choosing a car; secondly, 49.9% of car rental users pay attention to the rental of the car; after that, 44.6% and 41.5% of the users pay attention to the hygiene and model of the vehicle, respectively.
As the leading brand in the domestic car rental industry, China Car Rental has included epidemic prevention measures such as disinfection and killing, body temperature monitoring and other epidemic prevention measures into its daily operation requirements, and enhanced the user's consumption experience through policies such as self-service return and epidemic care. According to the "2022 Spring Festival Travel Big Data Report" of China Car Rental, during the Spring Festival, the proportion of free car orders and self-service return orders is extremely high.
From the perspective of the user's model selection, purchasing New Year goods, visiting relatives and friends, and self-driving tourism are indispensable travel activities for the Spring Festival, and spacious and comfortable body space is particularly important. According to iResearch data, 51.4% of car rental users like to rent comfort cars such as Sagitar and Lingdong; secondly, 36.2% of car rental users like to rent economy cars such as Langyi and Fit; after that, 33.8% and 32.8% of users like to rent compact SUVs and SUVs, respectively.
06
Car rental is becoming more and more convenient, and car rental stores in the city rent and return more than half of the car
The convenience of renting and returning a car is also one of the factors that car rental users consider. According to iResearch data, 53.8% of users pay attention to the convenience of renting a car/returning car; 50.3% of users pay attention to word-of-mouth reputation; and 49.8% of users pay attention to the convenience of procedures. In addition, more than 40% of users pay attention to after-hire services, vehicle richness, and store coverage. In contrast, other value-added services are not factors that most car rental users consider.
At the same time, with the rapid development of the car rental industry, car rental stores in the city can be found almost everywhere. For car rental users, the number of people who pick up and return cars in car rental stores in the city is not a minority. According to iResearch data, 54.3% and 52.3% of users pick up and return cars at car rental stores in the city, respectively; 44.1% and 44.5% of users pick up and return cars at high-speed rail stations or train stations, respectively; 31.9% and 34.3% of users pick up and return cars at the airport, respectively. In addition, hotels, bus stations, and attractions are also one of the main pick-up and drop-off locations for car rental.
07
Car rental and self-driving tours have quietly become popular and become the first choice for young people to travel during the holidays
According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, the number of domestic tourist trips nationwide during the Spring Festival holiday in 2022 reached 251 million, which has recovered to the level of more than 70% of the Spring Festival holiday in 2019. During the Spring Festival, visiting relatives and friends, urban leisure, rural vacation, ice and snow leisure have become the mainstream of the market, and self-driving tourism, family travel, small group customization, and "study + intangible cultural heritage" have become the mainstream mode of holiday travel.
At the same time, during the epidemic prevention and control period, the large-scale flow of people before and after the Spring Festival holiday, self-driving car rentals play a unique advantage, providing a guarantee for self-driving tourism and returning to visit relatives. According to iResearch data, 50.6% of users rented for short-distance self-driving trips; 38.4% of users rented cars for long-distance self-driving trips; and 36.3% of users rented cars to visit relatives and friends.
Driven by the normalization of self-driving tourism and epidemic prevention and control, the safety, privacy and flexibility of travel have become a new choice for people, and the demand for car rental and self-driving is increasing.
According to the "2022 Spring Festival Travel Big Data Report" of China Car Rental, during the Spring Festival this year, the vehicle rental rate was at a high level of "short supply" for five consecutive days, an increase of 22% over the same period last year, of which the post-85 and post-95 car rental users accounted for more than 70%, occupying a leading position; at the same time, affected by the particularity of the Spring Festival festival and the safety of car rental, people's willingness to renew rents was stronger, and the number of renewal orders accounted for 45%; the average rental period of vehicles was extended by nearly 50% year-on-year, of which short-term lease orders were extended by 2 days year-on-year.