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Sunny Cars with the first interim report for the new 2024/2025 financial year: Strong early booking season leads to record quarter
Balanced rental car market: The signs for the new year were good. As demand and supply realign, the price level for holiday cars stabilizes, and customers can get the vehicle they want.
Compared to the first quarter of the previous year, the quality rental car provider recorded around 15 percent more bookings in its source markets in the DACH region as well as Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. With over 230,000 bookings, Sunny Cars celebrates its strongest first quarter.
"The holiday car is an essential component of the trip for many to be flexible on site," says Thorsten Lehmann, Managing Director of Sunny Cars. "At Sunny Cars, we ensure that the car and passengers are comprehensively insured and that driving pleasure is the focus, not the fear of hidden costs or concerns in the event of damage. We invest in our employees, our partners in travel agencies, and our technology to always offer an all-inclusive package and the associated service. Even with high booking volumes, as was the case in January 2025. We are pleased that this quality is increasingly in demand on the market, as evidenced by the renewed growth in our bookings."
Strong Booking January and High Proportion of Early Bookings
January is the major month for early bookings throughout the entire tourism industry. At Sunny Cars as well, reservation requests always soar at the beginning of the year, with January 2024 being the month with the highest bookings in the fiscal year 2023/2024. In the first month of 2025, approximately the same number of bookings were received as in November and December 2024 combined.
The analysis of the departure months of all received bookings is interesting, as rental cars are usually booked on short or medium notice. Currently, however, the proportion of early bookers, who already secured their car between November 2024 and January 2025 for departures starting in May 2025, is over 40 percent. Some reservations even pertain to 2026. Compared to the previous year, the early booking rate has increased by several percentage points.
Outlook for the Summer Months: The Most Popular Destinations and Demand Periods
"A closer look at the early bird bookings reveals specific peaks," explains Kai Sannwald, Managing Partner of Sunny Cars.
The most popular countries overall in the short-haul travel sector are Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Among long-haul destinations, the USA and South Africa top the list. Over two-thirds of all bookings from the first quarter are for these six countries. For the sampled month of August 2025, Portugal, Spain, and the USA currently stand on the podium as the most popular car rental destinations.
But so far in advance this serves only as an indicator, comments Kai Sannwald, "since the expected extensive booking entries for the summer months are yet to come."
In total numbers, most bookings of the entire first quarter were made for February 2025 in Spain.
Car Rental Prices at a Constant, Slightly Increased Level
Early bookers usually take care of the major, longer vacations of the year. Trips over an extended weekend or a short week are often planned more spontaneously. Therefore, at the beginning of the year, bookings for longer periods often come in, leading to a higher total price than for a short vacation.
For example, a rental made in the first quarter with Sunny Cars was about 480 euros, approximately 45 euros above the annual average for the entire 2023/2024 business year.
"We expect the daily price per rental car to vary slightly throughout the year, but as of today, there are no significant fluctuations," explains Kai Sannwald. "Depending on the season, prices for last-minute bookings are likely to rise, so we always recommend booking early."
Booking Channels: Travel Agencies Still Strong
Even though Sunny Cars enables booking with a mouse click via an online portal or direct booking, the counter remains in focus.
Content automatically translated."Especially for longer vacations, many use the top service of stationary travel agencies and conveniently book all travel components from one source," says Thorsten Lehmann happily. "Therefore, we consider the travel agents to be our most important partners and continue to expand our service for them."
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