What Nordic Motorhome Customer Data tells us about the future of travel businesses?

The future success of Nordic motorhome rentals may well be decided by how well businesses understand current market developments and changing customer requirements. This article is based on research affiliated to the dissertation by Elle Tick, looking at rental transaction data of from 2017 onwards to analyze developments on the market.

According to the research results, the composition of the customer has shifted on several occasions:

* The pre-COVID situation is dominated by international customers; the share in 2017 and 2019 was around 80 per cent and 84 per cent respectively with Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and France as the most prevalent source markets.

* Families were at the dominant positions; for example they were associated with around 65 per cent of the analyzed rentals (couples: 35 per cent) in 2019.

* Average driver age (45-46) and the average rental duration were stable at around 12 days.

These facts painted a relatively clear picture of the market.

But this market was affected profoundly in 2020.

Included rentals dropped from 2,290 to 1,257 while local customers gained importance by taking share of roughly 53% of all included rentals while this was around 16% of all rentals in 2019.

The evidence proves the necessity for businesses within travel markets to be agile regarding changes in customer behavior, because domestic customers become more important if international travels become constrained due to the impact of the virus, which is what is observed here for 2020-2021. In 2021 included rentals of local customers stood at roughly 47%, and by 2022 international customers rose sharply again (86%).

However the post-COVID market is not only a case of repetition of earlier trends.

Rental duration of approximately 12 days went up to approximately 12.7 days in 2021 and to 14.3 days in 2022, maintaining its value of around 14 days through 2025. Furthermore the proportion of couples nearly matched that of families by the 2025 (approximately 46 percent, 2019 about 35).

These shifts highlight the rise of a new, perhaps more diverse, and experience focused customer segment, which is the most important for businesses. For companies, it doesn't just concern the choice of advertisement method. Customer segmentation might be an imperative decision concerning fleet, product presentation, communication, price positioning, product development strategy and delivery process.

An international traveller with two children traveling for two weeks will obviously have different requirements then couples which rent for a longer time or are focused more on an experience than a simple means of transportation.

Addressing those differences will allow businesses to design unique customer experiences.

This thesis reinforces the fundamental principle: data is to be utilized as business intelligence. Demographics changes, client base origins as well as rental durations may reveal opportunities much before their emergence is signalled on market statistics. The Northern market and its' rental segment is merely one illustration of customer changes leading to paradigm shifts of the market structure, but may serve as a crucial one for all business operating within any travel segment.

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