Last year many regular travelers to Spain got a shock when all car hire prices when through the roof. We are not talking 10% or so here, but in many cases 3 time more expensive, depending on how long you keft it before you tried to book. Even this year, those who left it late to book Spanish car hire found it expensive, although not to the levels of last year, plus those who though ahead, were happy that early prices had dropped again. Speaking to a car hire firm, they explianed that it was mormal to lease the cars they hire out. Unfortunatly last year leasing companies sold a lot of their stock to put money back in the business and stopped offering 6 month lease deals just to cover the busy period.
As car hire firms could not lease in high quantities over summer and low quantities over winter they just cose to play it safe and lease few cars, making a huge shortgage appear. Of course the big international names buy their own cars, but even these were caught out reducing their stock. It is interesting however how the car lease market affects the short term hire market also, with smaller companies throughout Spain.