AUGUSTA, Ga. – For more than a year you might have stayed in the house and avoided the crowds, but with the vaccine rollout progressing, traveling is once again on a lot of people’s minds.
And before they hit the road, they’re making sure everything is in top shape. And after a slow business period, auto repair shops are seeing a big boost.
“Business has been great…,” Aaron Clements said.
The co-founder of C&C Automotive says in the last few weeks, they’ve seen at least a 15 percent increase in cars coming in.
“….We’ve been very busy, we had a very, very nice March, well above average,” he said.
And David Vansoust over at DVS Automotive says the same thing, and they’re booked out for at least a week.
“We’re seeing an increase of about three to four cars a day,” he said.
And they’re not the only ones, several other shops say the same thing. But why?
“The reason is everybody’s been locked up for over a year, I mean they’ve been in the house, haven’t been able to travel,” Clements said.
And a dose of immunity and lower COVID-19 cases may be building summer travel confidence.
A survey by travel advising company Virtuoso found 82 percent of people say they’re ‘more ready’ to travel in 2021.
While most respondents say they’re likely to travel in the fall, in second place is early summer.
So, shops are ready to do it all, from oil changes, A/C systems, inspections and batteries.
“They want to get out and do stuff but yet they got to make sure everyday life is up and running and repaired properly,” Vansoust said.
And they don’t anticipate business slowing down.
“I expect this to continue on for a long period of time… they want to get back to normal, and their cars are part of normal,” Clements said.
Even though things may be trending back towards normal, healthcare experts advise people not to slack up on COVID protections and get vaccinated.
They say the longer you wait to get vaccinated, the longer we spend fighting the pandemic.
