All of their cars stopped on loots, some of them still completely brand new. Unknown questions about what is coming, shared with the rest of the economic activities related to tourism. And, in this gray environment, the island’s car rental companies hope that a revival of tourism, especially national tourism, in the middle of summer will allow them to avoid a completely null tourist season, despite the arrival of foreign clients, especially from the UK, it’s practically lost.
The foreign market became extremely complicated this year because of the pandemic emergency, but the hopes of the tourism related industries is put in those national vacationers that have a second home in the island and tend to come back to these at least a couple of times a year. In this regard, the eyes are put in the months of July and April, where even with the numbers being a lot lower than usual; they are hoping not to get an absolute zero.
New cars in garages with no date to debut
Cars, new or not, start aging at the moment they are bought. This means that there are still credits and payments that need to be solved, meanwhile the car itself starts suffering consequences on its pieces due to the lack of usage. Many of those enterprises bought new units at the end of the last year in order to get better economical profits from them, just to be in charge of a large scale problem with a lot of cars to pay, and no clients to make a profit from.
Even though rent a car services may still work just fine with the residents of the island and even give a helping hand in other services, the truth is that, compared to the huge waves of tourists that are usually expected for a normal summer season on the Balearic Islands, this residual market of empty streets does little to nothing to solve their economic needs.
In regards of the human force in this sector, it is well known that this is an economic activity that usually is a good source of employment. It is estimated that there are around seventy enterprises in the rent a car business in the islands, and over fifty of them are completely local. Thus means that the employment of both the permanent and the seasonal reinforcement staff is now endangered.
Not everything is lost, at least not yet
As things are right now, merchants and entrepreneurs from these islands, who are heavily reliant on the seasonal waves of visitors, prefer to work with the preset idea that this season is lost, and that anything that might come is more than welcome. However, it is said that over six thousands of traveling agencies from all over Spain are planning to sell touristic packages for the islands during the best days of the summer.
With this said, it wouldn’t be weird to see a new peak in the search for rent a car Menorca or any other services needed for the tourists.