Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Liu Xingtong Correspondent Fan Xiaojun
After nearly two years of epidemic "tempering", domestic self-driving travel is relying on its strong endogenous force to embark on a healthier, more standardized, high-quality fast lane, and the travel and booking habits of self-driving travel consumers are also quietly changing.
Recently, the global self-driving travel platform Rent-a-Car released the "2021 "Eleventh" Holiday National Car Rental Self-driving Tour Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"). It shows that during the National Day period, the demand for car rental travel in low-risk areas is still strong, the attraction of self-driving travel in niche cities and surrounding townships has increased sharply, and convenient services such as "flash rental" have quietly improved the quality of self-driving travel. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)
"Going south" and "going west" have become the main theme of the National Day self-driving trip
According to the report, Sanya, Chengdu, Haikou, Urumqi, Guangzhou, Lanzhou, Guiyang, Shenzhen, Xi'an and Chongqing ranked among the top ten popular self-driving destinations during the "Eleventh" holiday. The main travel directions are concentrated in "southbound" and "westbound", among which Hainan, which has good road conditions, good scenery and the blessing of the tax exemption policy for outlying islands, is still the most popular self-driving province, while Guangzhou-Shenzhen ranks fifth and eighth respectively, which also shows strong self-driving travel attraction.
In addition, the National Day period coincided with the shining debut of the Zhuhai Airshow, and compared with last year, Zhuhai's National Day travel fever also soared by 48%.
The data shows that during the "Eleventh" period this year, the number of searches per capita in popular destinations increased by nearly 25% compared with the "May Day" period. According to the analysis, affected by the sporadic epidemic, consumers are wandering in the ambivalence of "thinking about it" and "not daring to decide for the time being", and at the same time they are afraid that their favorite models will be robbed, so they have searched many times, which has become a major feature of this year's National Day car rental booking.
The head of rental car operations said that this trend reflects consumers' caution in travel booking, but in fact, users do not need to worry too much. In view of the special situation of the epidemic, the car rental platform can provide flexible refund and change policies, and the cancellation orders caused by the epidemic prevention and control will be given a guarantee of exemption and cancellation, and the losses incurred will be borne by the platform, "As long as the rental vehicle belongs to the upgraded to a medium- and high-risk area, the user can apply for free refund." The same applies to users who upgrade their origin to medium- and high-risk areas. ”
Niche destinations and township self-driving tours are vibrant
This year's National Day car rental, 15% of consumers rent a car for more than 7 days, becoming a "family of fakes". It is reported that nearly 10% of consumers choose to take 2 days off on October 8 and 9, and return the car between the 8th and 10th, which is equivalent to taking a 10-day vacation.
In terms of destination choice, more and more people are beginning to explore more interesting and niche self-driving routes. The data shows that this year's National Day, the car rental self-driving tour in the third, fourth and fifth-tier cities ushered in a wave of peak - compared with last year's "Eleven" data, some niche cities with suitable climate and beautiful scenery, such as: Ordos, Weihai, Altay, Jiuquan, Qionghai, Chifeng, Zhanjiang and other places, the car rental orders increased significantly, up to 30% to 40%.
There are also many tourists who choose to rent a car for self-driving tours around the province. Compared with last year's National Day, orders for returning cars in the same city within 3 days rose by 15.4%, of which orders for spacious RVs, station wagons and commercial vehicles increased by more than 80%, showing that group travel of relatives and friends is prevalent.
The data shows that the search popularity of models that can accommodate 5 or more people on National Day has increased by 13.6% compared with Qingming and "May Day", and people have brought their families and punched in quiet towns and rural homestays away from the city and unique scenery.
Around the theme of National Day, when formulating national day self-driving routes, many consumers will also string some red tourist destinations along the way.
"Sending cars to the door" and flash rentals are favored
Under the background of the normalization of the epidemic, consumers pay more attention to safety and quality when traveling, and prefer to "go straight". During the "Eleventh" period, 73% of self-driving tour users prefer to "send the car to home"; nearly 40% of users choose to experience a more convenient and safer "flash rental" service.
It is reported that the "flash rental" service will eliminate the traditional car rental procedures such as signing contracts at the store and swiping cards for pre-authorization, reducing contact at the same time, it can also provide a full insurance package with peace of mind protection, and many users think that it is as convenient as "calling a car", so it is favored.
In general, looking at the domestic car rental market on this year's National Day, industry insiders believe that under the premise of actively cooperating with epidemic prevention and control, consumers have learned to "exchange time for space", no longer arrange the itinerary fully, choose the province's self-driving tour to punch in the nearest niche attractions, enjoy slow-paced life, experience idyllic scenery, and pursue free and private travel, which has become the mainstream appeal.
In the process of car rental booking, it also fully reflects the identity characteristics of "hit workers" - it is reported that the rental car order confirmation time period during the "Eleventh" period is mainly concentrated in the three time periods of 12:00-13:00, 15:00-16:00, and 22:00-23:00 every day. It can be seen that "hit workers" make full use of their work gaps in planning trips, and actively pursue "poetry and far away" in their spare time.
Source | Yangcheng Evening News • Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | Lili