Conflicting Evidence: Car rental in Mallorca

The car-rental situation continues to cause the occasional apoplexy and disgusted of Tunbridge Wells letters to you know what. And if one is minded to be selective in terms of what one reads, then one can argue the case both ways - that there is a problem or there isn't. Take yesterday. In "Ultima Hora" there was a piece which quoted the views of one agency - Goldcar. This said that 30,000 tourists, mainly German, would not be coming to Mallorca because of a lack of supply of cars, and that they would be going elsewhere, where presumably they can get a car.

A point about this is that the circumstances which might be causing a shortage of cars in Mallorca are the same in other countries - recession and lack of credit. The apparent car scarcity is not unique to the island. But then there was another article, one from "The Diario", which painted a somewhat different picture. Far from there being a shortage of cars, the problem it was portraying was a shortage of customers. Perhaps those 30,000 Germans, or whoever they are, have indeed not chosen Mallorca. If so, they have left agencies with excess stock on their hands. According to this second article, some 40% of the total rent-a-car fleet in Mallorca is garaged up because of insufficient demand, and that only in the very high season (end July and August) is there likely to be anything approaching full supply.

So how does one reconcile these two conflicting points? The answer is that one doesn't. Or one probably plumps for the Ultima Hora version, if it lends support to one's claims of shortages and excessive prices. And on prices, the Diario goes on to say that, at present, typical daily rates are between 25 and 30 euros for a small car and between 40 and 45 for a medium-sized vehicle, and that these will rise to around 45-50 and 60, respectively, when demand really kicks in during high season. If so, then these prices are hardly in the category of some of the more outlandish claims that have been made about the cost of car hire, including of course the what one has to presume was a typo when "The Bulletin" quoted Harry Goodman as paying 7000 euros for a week's hire; even at 700 that would probably be for something pretty grand (7 April: She Bangs: Car-hire prices).


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.