Originally Posted by
patsy
Winner - the usage rate is a concept that THL has never understood and has been one of the reasons for its own demise: contrary to common sense, a high campervan usage rate is less profitable than an optimal (lower) usage rate. A high usage rate means disproportionally higher maintenance costs and more frequent replacement.
THL has consistently insisted on full utilisation simply because they believe that the market focuses on sales levels, not profit levels. A utilisation rate of around 10% below the usual top summer rate, would act as leverage on bottom line. That is, slightly lower sales would help achieve significant cost reduction thus giving a higher bottom line.
... but who can explain this to those who come from NZ Lotteries and believe that this business should be managed the same, as an intangible product one, in which sales and costs follow a perfectly correlated and linear relationship?
"Come back, Pickup - all is forgiven"