United States: neither car rentals are saved

The United States has seen its growth stagnant tourism following the attacks of September 2001. With the exception of New York, all major U.S. cities have lost international tourists, and the situation is of great concern to the authorities. But there are other companies that are being affected: the rental car companies.
As the United States is a country with a fairly mediocre public transport and long distances, is quite common that many tourists who come to this country choose to rent a car. But the lower tourism activity is taking its toll them to large companies in the sector, such as Hertz, Avis and Dollar Thrifty. The first of the companies had in the last quarter profits 40% less than the same period last year, and the second was 30% lower benefits. The third has seen its shares lost 90% of its value in just one year.

And we are not talking about small companies. These companies have fleets of vehicles up to 1.7 million units, and are big customers of the car. If they begin to demand less autos, U.S. companies like Chrysler and Ford will have more problems.

To make matters worse, several large automotive manufacturing Americans are leaving middle cars, which are highly demanded by the signatures of rents, as have smaller profit margin. Hence we must add that the price of used cars has fallen, affecting other sources of income of these companies.

If the tourism crisis begins to affect U.S. companies as big as the ones who rent cars, then the subject and begin to become increasingly serious.