In 2023, under the superimposed effect of multiple policy measures and cultural and tourism activities, a series of high-quality cultural and tourism events with rich formats, innovative forms, and popular news will make local culture "live" and tourism "fire", and the enthusiasm of the whole people to travel will be high, and the cultural tourism market will achieve a strong recovery.
According to the "2023 National Day Car Rental Self-driving Report" released by eHi Car Rental, during the 2023 National Day ** Week, eHi Car Rental's performance broke out in an all-round way, hitting a record high. Among them, the number of new user registrations increased by more than 50% year-on-year, the daily activity of APP increased by 80% year-on-year, the number of page views increased by 150% year-on-year, and the average occupancy rate of peak days reached 97%, achieving leapfrog growth year-on-year in 2022.
As a leader in the car rental industry, eHi Car Rental is in full swing preparing for the 2024 Spring Festival holiday, announcing at the end of December last year that it has reached a multi-year strategic alliance with Shanghai Disney Resort, which complements each other's strengths and provides innovative travel services for park visitors. In addition, the company has launched a large number of new vehicles, including Wrangler, Crown Land and Audi S4, covering 30+ new models and 15+ brands, and tens of thousands of new cars to welcome self-driving trips during the New Year's Day and Spring Festival holidays.
The reporter learned that eHi Car Rental targets young people, focuses on self-driving travel scenarios, and constantly explores travel + modes. Up to now, the company has 10,000+ outlets that have connected to more than 500 cities across the country, and eHi Car Rental can be seen around high-speed rail stations and airports, and has a fleet size of 120,000 vehicles + more than 200 models, bringing users more diversified travel options.
So, what is eHi's solution for car rentals in the wave of "self-driving tours"?
Explore Mobility+, the industry has great prospects.
From the perspective of the industry, the car rental market has great growth resilience, according to the report of third-party related research institutions, the industry market size in 2022 is 1061600 million yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 27 in the three years of the epidemic (2020-2022).5%。
Data**: 2023-2028 Global and China Car Rental Industry Market Status Survey and Development Prospect Analysis Report
In 2023, the tourism industry will recover rapidly, led by peripheral tours and short-distance tours, driving the popularity of "temporary travel" self-driving tours, especially for non-local travelers, and the demand for "landing self-driving" is strong. On the supply side of the industry, eHi has always been one of the market leaders.
eHi Car Rental has been deeply engaged in the insight and analysis of domestic car travel service usage scenarios and experiences, explored the travel + service ecosystem, and has established in-depth cooperation with leading enterprises and high-quality brands in the fields of tourism, transportation and hotels. Recently, eHi Car Rental and Shanghai Disney Resort jointly announced that they have reached a multi-year strategic alliance, which is a major addition to the layout of the "Travel+" tourism ecological scene.
Under the new alliance, eHi Car Rental will provide shuttle bus service from designated offline outlets to Shanghai Disney Resort for guests who rent a vehicle on its car rental platform on the day of their visit to the park. At the same time, Shanghai Disneyland's iconic float parade "Mickey Mouse Fairy Tale Train" will be officially presented by eHi Car Rental. In the future, the platform's official app will also be available in the Shanghai Disney Resort Zone, where guests can enjoy exclusive car rental benefits.
On the one hand, they are optimistic about the trend of self-driving travel and fully affirm the strength of the partners, on the other hand, the two sides have their own resource endowments, complement each other's advantages, and jointly launch more innovative services to meet the needs of tourists and achieve a win-win situation.
It is worth noting that the cultural tourism scene is one of the core business scenarios of the car rental industry, and eHi Car Rental has dug deep into the diversified consumption scenarios of cultural tourism to create a "travel +" cross-industry cooperation ecosystem. For example, the company has cooperated with many local governments to leverage the local cultural tourism consumer market; Carry out in-depth cross-industry integration with leading wine and tourism enterprises to create a "travel + accommodation" model; Reach cooperation with aviation and other large transportation to promote the popularization of "large transportation + landing self-driving" travel lifestyle; Cooperate with OTA platform channels, enter the platform car rental section or brand area, and share resources; At the same time, it also cooperates with many domestic and foreign automobile manufacturers to accelerate the iteration of new and old vehicles and enrich the supply of models.
eHi Car Rental's 18-year business history has established an indestructible reputation in the industry, in fact, the car rental industry is relatively fragmented, but the echelon is very obvious, and the company has become a consensus from all walks of life to sit firmly in the top echelon in the industry. In addition, the development of the cultural tourism industry has been supported and promoted by policies, and under the trend of self-driving travel, it is foreseeable that eHi's innovative model can promote tourism consumption and regional culture to further penetrate and promote to all parts of the country, helping the rapid development of domestic cultural tourism.
Build trust, pick up and return, and drive worry-free.
Despite the trend in the car rental industry, the risk of problems for users is also not negligible. For consumers who choose to rent a car for self-driving, they are worried about stepping on mines, renting a car is like drawing a blind box, and problems such as indiscriminate deduction of deposits, poor car condition, and additional costs incurred when returning the car in a different place often occur. Considering the fragmentation of the car rental market and the lack of industry service standards, leading enterprises and hundreds of small car rental companies competing for market share and business opportunities, how to ensure that this car rental boom can continue to bring impetus to the industry has become an urgent problem to be solved in the context of increasingly homogeneous competition.
In response to the needs of diversified "veteran" users, as well as the concerns of "novice" users who have not yet taken the first step in taxi, it can be seen that eHi has been taking action. In addition to the models to meet the diverse needs of users, in recent years, it has repeatedly led the industry to launch car rental services that meet the expectations of users, such as providing 0 yuan vehicle deposit, national remote return, self-service pick-up and return service, and door-to-door delivery and door-to-door pick-up. The company's many services have broken the "industry rules", such as taking the lead in completely canceling the vehicle deposit, prompting the industry to enter the era of "0 yuan" vehicle deposit, which greatly reduces the cost of users; Supporting the nationwide long-distance return of the car has broken the practice that the original rental car must be returned to the original point, and the launch of this service has made the user's self-driving travel more convenient and flexible.
With customer satisfaction and safety as the foundation for survival and long-term development, eHi Car Rental has developed into a leading company with scale advantages, and up to now, the company has opened more than 10,000 directly operated service outlets in more than 500 cities across the country. Under the scale of 10,000 "stores", eHi car rental can be seen at high-speed rail stations and around the airport. At the same time, the fleet size has exceeded 120,000 vehicles, including Cadillac, Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan, GAC Trumpchi, Jeep, Tesla, Xpeng and other more than 200 models.
Relying on its own fleet, stores and employees, eHi is able to unify service standards and configurations, so as to better control the quality of service. Users can generate a good impression and trust when they first experience a car rental service, and this goodwill will then spread to the entire car rental industry, enhancing the overall reputation of the industry. This has undoubtedly played a positive role in promoting the development and standardization of the entire industry.
eHi Car Rental has become the trusted first choice for many first-class departments, public institutions, Fortune 500 companies and other designated commercial car services, with customers covering a variety of fields such as energy, education, advertising, finance, and manufacturing. At the same time, it also provides a full range of high-quality car rental services such as long-term rental cars and short-term rental self-driving for different groups such as urban white-collar workers, business people, and parent-child families.
As the 2024 Chinese New Year holiday approaches, eHi Car Rental is fully prepared, including significantly increasing the size of its fleet and increasing cooperation with attraction companies, such as its alliance with Shanghai Disney Resort, to increase the layout of cultural tourism in advance, and provide innovative services to consumers through customized cooperation. Before the Spring Festival, it is not ruled out that the company will continue to increase cooperation related to cultural tourism and cover more consumption scenarios to achieve scale expansion.
Keep up with policy trends and promote the development of cultural tourism through multiple strategies.
eHi's car rental business strategy closely follows policy trends and industry trends, such as low-carbon travel and new energy vehicle policies, the company promotes car sharing and new energy vehicle layout, and first promotes low-carbon travel mode, that is, "big traffic + landing self-driving" mode; Under the trend of self-driving travel, the company has landed in the travel + scenario, and has continuously opened up the business chain through the ecological model of cross-industry cooperation; Under the "three genders and three modernizations" of user needs and market trends, the company provides more customized services. In fact, these have the forward-looking nature of industry demonstration.
It can be seen that the company's business strategy and business model are highly consistent with policies and the industry, and it has always stood at the forefront of the industry, continuously meeting user expectations with high-quality service and innovation capabilities, and undertaking increasingly advanced car rental needs. The car rental industry has maintained a high growth trend, and the demand for self-driving travel is booming, the company explores travel + scenarios, further opens up the growth space of the industry, and promotes the development of domestic cultural tourism.
Overall, self-drive travel has become a trend for people to travel, and as long as this demand persists, the car rental boom is likely to continue to grow. However, with the continuous consolidation and reshuffling of the industry, the competition has now shifted to brands and services. Therefore, the car rental industry needs to pay more attention to brand building and service quality to ensure that it can stand out in the fierce market competition and achieve long-term sustainable development. Gathering among the representatives of leading enterprises, I believe that eHi Car Rental is fully prepared for the trustworthy brand scale and innovative "Travel+" model.