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.
TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.
No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.
Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.
A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
