Heilongjiang’s car rental market heats up during the National Day holiday, and long-term rental growth is driven by off-site car return services

China News Service, Harbin, October 5 (Reporter Zhao Yuhang) During the National Day holiday, the popularity of autumn tourism in Heilongjiang's Wuhua Mountain continues to rise. The "airplane/high-speed rail + car rental" self-driving model has become the mainstream choice for foreign tourists to visit Heilongjiang. The car rental market has experienced significant growth. Many core indicators of online booking, long-term car use, and off-site car return business have increased significantly. The integration of transportation and travel has effectively stimulated consumption vitality.

The opening of the Haiyi High-speed Railway to traffic has further released tourism dividends in forest areas. From September 28 to October 4, car rental orders in the Yichun area exceeded 1,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 58%. It is the fastest growing area in the car rental market in Heilongjiang Province during this holiday.

Tourists visit Yichun Jinshan Deer Park during the National Day holiday. Photo by China News Service reporter Liu Lu

In order to adapt to the demand for self-driving on all-region loops, the Heilongjiang Provincial Road Transport Development Center promotes leading leasing companies to fully implement the "rent at one point, return at multiple points" off-site car return services in 13 prefecture-level cities in the province and border tourist hotspots such as Mohe and Fuyuan. Some routes have introduced preferential policies such as exemptions and exemptions for off-site returns. Tourists can pick up the car at Harbin Airport or high-speed rail station, drive to Yichun, Wudalianchi, and the G331 border tourist corridor, and return the car directly to the destination city, eliminating the need to go back and forth.

With the full implementation of off-site car returns, the structure of car rental orders has also undergone significant changes. In previous years, short-term orders of 2-3 days were mainly used during holidays. This holiday, the proportion of long-term rental orders of 5-7 days has increased significantly. Some holidaymakers have a car rental period of up to 10 days. The travel mode of "provincial capital landing, global loop self-driving" is gradually taking shape.

Judging from the data on customer groups and car models, tourists from outside the province are the main consumers of car rentals, with large-space SUVs and 7-seat MPV models being the most in demand. Online bookings continue to account for more than 90% of total orders. The occupancy rate of local leading leasing companies reaches 95%. Facing the surging demand for vehicles in the market, the Heilongjiang Provincial Road Transport Development Center carried out cross-regional transportation capacity dispatch in advance and organized self-operated platforms to deploy 2,000 vehicles from other places to key tourist cities such as Harbin, Yichun, and Heihe, so as to promptly fill the vehicle gap in tourist hotspot cities.

During the second half of the holiday, the Heilongjiang Provincial Road Transport Development Center will continue to strengthen cross-city coordinated supervision to help transform short-term holiday traffic into long-term consumption power for Heilongjiang's four-season tourism. (over)