At the pandemic\u2019s outset, rental car companies sold off their fleets to right-size for the cratering demand. Now that pandemic restrictions have lifted, confidence has returned, and domestic travel is picking up, there are more reservations than companies can accommodate and travelers are turning to alternative accommodations.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe're uniquely positioned to alleviate this rental car crunch because our hosts [already have] cars that they own,\u201d he said. \u201cThey're already leveraging this underutilized asset, which is the car, as cars are idle the vast majority of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
For those in certain locations where the rental car shortage is especially dire, such as Hawaii, it\u2019s an opportunistic move for locals to make money and \u201calleviate that travel crunch,\u201d Haddad said, with some hosts seeing \u201c their earnings multiplied by a factor of 10\u201d year to date.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere's clearly a unique moment in time now with the rental car crunch, the inability for the large fleet car operators like Enterprise, Avis, and Hertz to scale up their fleets because of the shortage of cars and shortage of microchips,\u201d Haddad said.<\/p>\n
Especially enterprising hosts are using Turo to build small businesses or earn additional income by buying or leasing additional cars and \u201cdedicating them 100% of the time to the usage on the platform,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur hosts are telling us that their business is really booming,\u201d Haddad said.<\/p>\n
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Stephanie is a reporter for Yahoo Money and <\/em>Cashay<\/em>, a new personal finance website. Follow her on Twitter <\/em>@SJAsymkos<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n