According to data from the Ministry of Transport, in 2024, there will be about 9 billion people traveling, visiting relatives, and leisure in 40 days, which may hit a record high. The Spring Festival has undergone structural changes, and the number of passenger trips in traditional commercial transportation, including railways, highways, civil aviation, and water transport, is expected to be about 1.8 billion, and the remaining 80% will be self-driving trips, which will hit a record high.
Are you driving on the road during the Spring Festival this year? For people traveling across provinces and cities, renting a car is also a more time-saving and labor-saving travel option, with the advantages of flexibility, freedom, independence and privacy, this year's Spring Festival holiday car rental self-driving tour is particularly popular. According to the "2024 Spring Festival Car Rental Self-driving Tour Report" released by Ctrip, the number of domestic car rental self-driving orders for the Spring Festival in the Year of the Dragon has nearly doubled year-on-year, and increased by more than 400% compared with the Spring Festival in 2019. From the perspective of spending, the per capita car rental cost during the Spring Festival this year was 20% year-on-year. The maximum rental period for domestic car rental is 39 days, and the self-driving mileage is about more than 10,000 kilometers; Overseas self-driving tours are also popular, with the number of overseas car rental orders on Ctrip's platform increasing by more than 20 times year-on-year, and the longest self-driving rental period is as long as 49 days.
As the travel and transportation mix becomes more flexible and convenient, more users choose to rent a car and drive as a destination for sightseeing. According to the report, 93% of the car rental orders on Ctrip's platform are non-local car rental orders, and the combined booking of air ticket + car rental accounts for 40% of the overall car rental orders.
In order to cope with the shortage of holiday resources, Ctrip Car Rental stepped up its inventory reserve before the holiday and adjusted the vehicle inventory according to the car rental booking situation in different regions. With the advantages of an aggregator platform, Ctrip Car Rental integrates the resources of the global car rental ** chain to provide users with the convenience of car rental. At present, the domestic business has covered 700+ cities, with a total of 5,500+ cooperative merchants, 14,000+ stores, and more than 4,000+ models. Globally, it has covered more than 200 countries and regions, more than 12,000 cities, and 130,000 stores.
From the perspective of self-driving people, it is still the main group of self-driving tours during the Spring Festival, among them, the post-80s account for 49%, and the post-90s reach 30%. The growth of post-00s is the most rapid, and the growth rate of post-00s self-driving users during this year's Spring Festival is 80% higher than that of other age groups. Leisure travel and family travel have also become the main needs of the post-80s and post-90s self-driving travel, and the trend of "driving and traveling with the family for the New Year" is obvious. Among them, Haikou, Shanghai and Kunming have become popular destinations for parent-child self-driving tours.
From the perspective of car rental habits, self-driving users during the Spring Festival this year booked vehicles on average 7 days in advance; 52% of the orders chose 1-3 days of short- and medium-distance self-driving, and 41% of the orders chose 4-7 days of long-distance self-driving; In addition, from the perspective of consumption, the unit price of domestic self-driving passengers during the Spring Festival was 3,020 yuan, an increase of 20% over last year.
The popular self-driving routes for the Spring Festival are: Hainan Island Ring Road, West Yunnan Grand Ring Road, West Sichuan Grand Ring Road, Xinjiang Grand Ring Road and Northwest Grand Ring Road. The popular destinations for car rental during the Spring Festival are: Haikou, Sanya, Kunming, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Dali, Shanghai, Nanning, Shenzhen and Xishuangbanna; Xi'an, Guiyang, Hangzhou, Jieyang, Chaozhou, Guilin, Fuzhou, Wuhan, Nanjing, and Changchun are newly promoted to the top ten dark horse destinations for domestic Spring Festival self-driving tours.
According to the report, nearly 45% of the 2024 Spring Festival car rental users are new customers, and a large proportion of them are first-time self-driving users. Ctrip is committed to providing users with a high-quality car rental service experience, covering more than 4,000 vehicle models, with more than 50% of the vehicles being aged within one year. New cars that are less than one year old are widely favored by self-driving users, and nearly 40% of new customers choose to rent a new car within one year.
Low-carbon and environmentally friendly green travel has become an important development trend in the field of self-driving. According to the latest statistics, the new energy models on Ctrip's car rental platform have covered more than 450 categories, and the rental of new energy vehicles has surged during the Spring Festival, with the proportion of new energy orders increasing by more than 32 times compared with the Spring Festival in 2023, and the proportion of new energy customer orders accounting for nearly 45%. During the Spring Festival, the carbon reduction of new energy vehicles reached 90 tons, which is equivalent to planting 4,861 trees.
In this year's Spring Festival, the proportion of self-driving travel is also very high. According to the report, the number of overseas car rental orders on Ctrip's platform increased by more than 20 times year-on-year. Ctrip Car Rental has car rental services in more than 200 countries or regions around the world, supporting 12 languages and including 36 stops. "In the future, China's car rental market is expected to lead the world in terms of service level, and export Chinese services to the world through the field of outbound car rental. Song Zhen, CEO of Ctrip, said.
During this year's Spring Festival, ** City, Melbourne, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Los Angeles, Phuket, Sydney, Bangkok, Auckland, and Abu Dhabi became the top ten popular destinations for overseas self-driving; Among them, the Spring Festival car rental orders in Melbourne, Australia increased by more than 56 times year-on-year, the self-driving orders in Dubai increased by nearly 50 times year-on-year, and the Spring Festival self-driving orders in New Zealand increased by more than 35 times year-on-year.
Ctrip Car Rental has achieved no deposit for car rentals in many overseas countries, covering countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, the United States, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and other countries. Among them, among the service providers that have opened free deposit in Thailand, more than 70% of the orders have chosen to be free of charge.
In order to help users easily start overseas self-driving, Ctrip Car Rental also offers free international translation and certification of driver's licenses for travel to nearly 200 countries around the world. According to Ctrip's data, nearly 90% of outbound self-driving users have chosen to use it. Ctrip has launched a total of 128 official self-driving road books, covering classic self-driving routes such as "Must Drive in This Life", "Seasonal Recommendation" and "Cultural Tourism Cooperation", providing users with more accurate and convenient self-driving guides.
In the future, competition in the car rental market will focus on service quality and user experience, and each company is deepening its own areas of expertise, and competition will not be the main direction. Ctrip Car Rental is committed to providing a convenient and worry-free high-quality car rental experience to global users," said Song Zhen.
According to the report, the Spring Festival in 2024 will account for nearly 7% of the "worry-free rent" orders. In addition, in order to help users choose models more intuitively, Ctrip Car Rental is the first in the industry to view cars in VR, opening a new era of 360-degree panoramic car viewing. Covering 1,500+ models, covering more than 130,000 vehicles.
In the past year, Ctrip has established car rental centers in core hubs across the country, creating a one-stop vehicle pick-up and return service, covering popular urban transportation hubs across the country. During the Spring Festival, five new car rental centers were opened in Sanya, Xishuangbanna, Nanning and Urumqi.
At the same time, Ctrip Car Rental won the honor of 2023 Better Life, Brand Leading Enterprise of the Year at the People-oriented, Insight into the Future-2023 Better Life Summit Forum hosted by The Economic Observer. Recently, "Sanya Release"** announced that Ctrip Car Rental is the "2023 Red List Platform", actively cooperating with the implementation of the filing policy, low complaint rate, timely rectification of problems, and rapid resolution of disputes, providing users with a good industry market environment.
(Correspondent Liu Yue).
[Editor in charge: Li Jinqiong; Review: Li Xinrui].