According to two of the market leaders in vehicle hire in South Africa, this year’s World Cup was disappointing for the car rental business. Demand for hire vehicles fell well short of expectations according to the bosses of rental giants Imperial Holdings and McCarthy. One of the main reasons for this seems to have been many tourists’ willingness to rely on public transport.

Brand Pretorius, chief executive at McCarthy, said the Bus Rapid Transport System and the Gautrain had been particularly popular. He added that perhaps tourists were also worried about the reputation of South African roads, as well as the fact that vehicles are right-hand-drive.

Chairman of the Imperial Holdings car rental and tourism division, Osman Arbee, said that rental levels were no where near expected, both during the lead up to the tournament, and during the tournament. Of the major cities Johannesburg was by far the busiest, and both Imperial Holdings and McCarthy admit they had to redeploy vehicles to the city from Cape Town and Durban where demand was particularly low.

Before the tournament, Mr Pretorius claims McCarthy increased its fleet by between 15 and 20 per cent. However, because of the low level of reservations in the lead up, McCarthy was actually forced to start the defleeting process before a ball had even been kicked in the games. Imperial Holdings also increased its fleet before the Cup by around 2,000 vehicles.

Mr Arbee said that Imperial had seen some benefits from the month of the World Cup, adding that the company’s Springbok Atlas buses had been extremely popular with groups of tourists.