For motorhome rental companies, business results will largely depend on utilisation of vehicles.

Research in the area concerning Ells Tick’s PhD dissertation could provide a helpful starting point for looking at this operational challenge – through studying vehicle usage time, customers and rental patterns within the Nordic motorhome market. Vehicle utilisation consists of more than just renting out vehicles; a firm must know for how long vehicles are out, when they will be returned, how booking pattern impacts the availability and much else besides.

For example, average vehicle usage time saw significant developments according to research, since customers rented motorhomes approximately 12 days before the pandemic, around 12.7 days in 2021, 14.3 days in 2022 and approximately 14 days through to 2025.

This is of significance for rental firms in that one long rental booking makes for higher utilisation of each vehicle than multiple short bookings. Furthermore, a new planning framework would emerge when based on such long booking durations instead of short trip planning in an operating environment. Fleet managers would need to account for longer vehicle allocations, maintenance intervals, cleaning procedures, and booking availabilities. Additionally, the customer base can have an impact.

In 2019, families constituted around 65 per cent of all analysed rental agreements and couples 35 per cent.

However, from 2019 to 2025, couples became the most frequent customer category by almost 46 per cent. Such a difference could indicate how the use of motorhomes differs among customer types, which is a fact that business could consider when planning their vehicle pool. Another aspect is that Nordic markets operate within the global market; in 2019 international customers constituted close to 84 per cent of all analysed rentals and 86 per cent in 2022.

Important international source markets included the following: Switzerland, Germany, The Netherlands and France. The needs of international travellers concerning booking lead times and travel arrangements will likely differ from those of domestic tourists. The research, at large, highlights that fleet planning based solely on past rental volumes could be misleading as the length of rental and client segments would be overlooked.

By combining all these factors (usage time, client base and customer origin), Nordic motorhome rental businesses could reach a clearer picture concerning business development as well as operational improvements.

The broader meaning this brings forward goes far beyond the Nordic market for rental of motorhomes. Whether it’s a question of renting equipment, vehicles or accommodation facilities, effective use of assets should always be the aim. The Nordic market research could serve as an excellent reference point for businesses operating in similar sectors of the market and could help ensure effective utilisation by using data which explains not only who is booking a product, but how business’s resources are being used.

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Read More: https://www.globalxpublications.com/blog/who-are-the-customers-and-how-have-they-changed-2017-2026

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