Taylor Raggers and her partner, Will Perry, were looking forward to their honeymoon in Newfoundland this summer before they realized they’d have no way of getting around the province.
The couple, who live in Port Hope, Ont., tried to book a car back in February for a trip they planned to take in late June but were out of luck.
“I probably called five or six places and then anything online that I could find, and they [all had] nothing available,” Raggers said.
The lack of car rentals means Raggers isn’t going to be able to explore Perry’s home province and meet family members living there. Instead, the couple will be hitting the road in their own vehicle for a closer destination: Nova Scotia.
“Will really wanted to show me where his family was from. And I really wanted to see Newfoundland. It’s big on my bucket list,” she said.
Taylor Raggers, right, and her partner, Will Perry, left, shown with their daughter Delilah Perry, were planning on travelling to Newfoundland in June for their honeymoon but couldn’t find a car rental in the province. So they’ve decided to drive their own vehicle to Nova Scotia instead. (Hope Dawn Photography)
History is repeating itself as last summer’s “carpocalypse” makes a return. With travel picking up and more Canadians planning to get out this summer as the pandemic eases, car rental companies are trying to secure more vehicles, said Craig Hirota, vice-president of government relations and member services for the Associated Canadian Car Rental Operators.
“Our best estimates show we’re probably still 15 to 20 per cent down from pre-pandemic numbers,” Hirota said.
The report found that the size of rental car fleets in the province dropped by more than 30 per cent in 2020. And while fleets started to recover in 2021, they did not return anywhere close to pre-pandemic levels as companies struggled to find vehicles.
A major contributor to the shortage of car rentals is the slow pace of new vehicle production. Car manufacturers have been backlogged on production as they continue to face a semiconductor chip shortage, a part necessary for digital technology.
“That was exacerbated by the fact that our industry had to pare down our fleets … when demand dropped in March 2020,” the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hirota said.
Montreal-based car rental company AutoPlateau is experiencing this exact challenge. Gabriel Raymond, who works for the company that is owned by his family, said it had to downsize its fleet when the pandemic hit. Now, as it tries to expand, Raymond said it’s difficult to find cars.
“The car manufacturers are running out of chips for the cars. So car dealers are running out of cars. So car rental companies are not able to renew their fleet,” he said.
Gabriel Raymond, right, shown with his grandfather, Rodrigue Desrosiers, the owner of AutoPlateau, says the car rental company has been helping customers who have been struggling to find car rentals elsewhere. (CBC)
But Raymond said the company has been able to weather the shortage because it keeps vehicles around for longer, opting to fix them up instead of replacing them.
Despite having no marketing budget, he said AutoPlateau has attracted customers who have no luck securing car rentals elsewhere.
“It’s [stressful] because we have a lot of demand coming in from everywhere that we wouldn’t have otherwise because we’re a small company,” Raymond said, adding that the company relies on word of mouth to attract customers.
The shortage of rentals has significantly jacked up the cost of renting a vehicle. According to Statistics Canada, prices for rental vehicles rose by 30 per cent in 2021, while the overall inflation rate sat at 3.4 per cent.
Hirota said the higher cost of renting a car is partly because demand is outpacing supply, and inflation is pushing up the cost of cars and repairs.
Planning travel this summer
With summer in sight and most COVID-19 restrictions lifted across the country, tourism is expected to pick up again. The World Trade and Tourism Council is forecasting that the contribution to GDP from Canada’s travel and tourism sector could rebound to $157 billion (Cdn) in 2023, just 0.8 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.
That means more travellers, such as Taylor Raggers, will be looking to snatch a car rental.
Raymond recommends that travellers who are hoping to rent a car this summer make plans as soon as possible and to beware of companies that overbook.
“Overbooking, especially in [a] high demand period, means they’re going to put more customers on the same car,” he said.
Some travellers are also turning to a less conventional transportation option: car-sharing.
Similar to Airbnb, car-sharing services allow people to rent out their vehicles to others. American car-sharing company Turo says its services are helping customers secure vehicles amid the rental shortage.
“What we’re seeing is that our Turo hosts are stepping in to fill the void,” said Cedric Mathieu, the vice-president and head of Canada at Turo.
Mathieu said the peer-to-peer model of car-sharing is more flexible than a car fleet model, which faces challenges when it needs to increase or decrease the number of vehicles available for rent.
Cedric Mathieu is the vice-president and head of Canada at Turo, a U.S.-based car-sharing company. Turo currently has more than 50,000 vehicles available in more than 350 cities across Canada. (CBC)
“As the demand started surging back up, we’re able to acquire and convince more hosts to join,” he said.
Turo currently has more than 50,000 vehicles available in more than 350 cities across the country. Most recently, the company has expanded to Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
As for when a recovery for the car rental industry can be expected, Hirota of the Associated Canadian Car Rental Operators said it’s hard to predict, given how quickly things can change. But while car manufacturers continue to ramp up production, he said challenges are still likely to persist for the next couple of years.
“I think it’s going to remain a challenge to get vehicles through the coming year and possibly the next year after that,” he said.
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.
The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.
It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
