Rush on rental cars expected

Press, 10 December 1981, Page 27

Rush on rental cars expected

More overseas tourist g bookings have led to heavy demand over the Christmas period for rental car firms. Most of the reservations are for six-cylinder cars, station waggons, camper vans and mini-buses, and have been booked and paid for well in advance. "We are going to have problems in certain sizes of cars, mainly the bigger ones,” said one rental firm manager. "Our larger cars and station waggons are completely booked out for January. We have had a lot more Australians booking and paying in advance for cars. The good exchange rate they can get for their dollar means more are choosing New Zealand for their holidays.” The number of bookings made by American and British tourists was also high, about the same as last year. Rental firms were expecting a big influx of tourists after Christmas, said one manager. Several of the bookings are of the fly-drive type. Most

tourists fly to Auckland, drive their rented car south to either Wellington or Christchurch and then leave New Zealand. Some of the bookings are for flights arriving at Rotorua, mainly for American parties who intend to travel south. Although bookings by overseas tourists are higher, those made by local people seem to be much the same or lower than last year. Most firms had some local bookings through until February but still had cars available for hire. Traditionally, local bookings are made much later than those by overseas visitors and this has been the case again this year. "Things are fairly quiet at the moment but we expect them to go crazy about, the middle of this month,” said one spokesman. Another said that many cars were available at present, but a rush of bookings was expected in the next few weeks.