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The idea of renting vehicles for business trips gained in popularity when the recession first bit in 2008 and 2009. Yes, pound for pound, it works out more expensive than leasing an equivalent car or van over an extended period, but uncertainty was such at the time that companies didn't know how, when and whether they would have to cut back, so committing to a lease contract for three years or more wasn't a viable option for many - particularly if they were facing hefty contract termination charges in the wake of staff redundancies.
Consequently, the non-committal aspect of rental made it an attractive alternative, as Andy Hartley, commercial director at leasing giant Lex Autolease, explains: "Companies didn't want to make the commitment. There was a definite requirement for vehicles but people couldn't say whether they'd absolutely want one for three or four years. In that case they went for rental or extended their existing contract-hire agreements."
Paul Marchment, fleet consultant at Arval, believes that, in addition to the economy, there were other factors at play that have affected the increase in rental over the past few years.
"When rental became more popular, we were experiencing long manufacturer lead times," he says. "Certain components were unavailable after the Japanese tsunami and we were looking at lead times of six to 12 months for some vehicles.
"Companies were tending to put staff in mini-lease [a scheme designed for businesses renting a vehicle for more than 28 days] and long-term rentals to bridge that gap and that impacted us as well. The difficulty is in understanding how much that impacted us as well as the economy."
Hartley says the recession did not do the business rental industry as many favours as you might think, though. Despite the spike as a result of the backlash to leasing, a lot of companies imposed regular travel bans on their employees, causing them to resort to teleconferencing and phone calls instead of face-to-face meetings - a move that has had a lasting affect.
"The flipside to [the increase in rental] is that with short-term hire, people can terminate their contracts immediately with no penalty," he says.
"At that time, lots of businesses were saying 'there will be no travel one week a month' and that put an immediate, overnight stop on short-term type expenditure.
"We saw that last year particularly. That second part began more and more, as people were beginning to get used to teleconferencing and online conferencing as opposed to going out.
"In the first half of this year we've seen [the market] pick up but it hasn't gone back up to pre-'08 levels."
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