Ottawa-born travel tech startup RVezy was riding high at the start of 2026 — until the fuel pump threatened to deflate the whole summer.
For the first two months of the year, things looked exceptional. Founder Michael McNaught watched bookings on his online RV rental platform jump 25 per cent compared to the same period a year earlier. Canadians, it seemed, were eager to dust off their road-trip dreams and get moving.
Then March arrived, and with it, a sobering shift.
A Platform Built for the Open Road
RVezy — often described as the Airbnb of RV rentals — connects RV owners with travellers looking to rent a recreational vehicle for short or extended trips. It's a peer-to-peer model that's grown steadily since McNaught launched the company, tapping into a market hungry for flexible, affordable travel alternatives to hotels and resorts.
The appeal is obvious: rent someone's RV for a week, drive wherever you want, sleep under the stars, and skip the resort fees. For many Canadian families, it's a way to travel on their own terms. Ottawa and the surrounding region — with easy access to Algonquin Park, the Rideau Valley, and Quebec's Laurentians — make the platform especially relevant for capital-area residents looking to get outdoors.
Fuel as the X Factor
But RVs are notoriously thirsty vehicles, and when pump prices climb, the economics of renting one shift quickly. A budget-conscious family that might have enthusiastically booked a two-week adventure in February could recalculate the math by April and decide a shorter trip — or no trip at all — makes more sense.
That's the bind McNaught is navigating. Strong early demand suggested pent-up appetite for travel. But fuel costs are a variable no rental platform can control, and they have an outsized effect on RV travel compared to, say, flying or booking a hotel room.
For the broader tourism industry, this pattern is familiar — a strong early booking window followed by a mid-season reality check as operational costs filter through to travellers. The question for RVezy, and for Ottawa-area tourism operators watching closely, is whether that early momentum will hold through the peak summer months of July and August.
What It Means for Ottawa Tourism
Ottawa's summer tourism season is closely tied to visitor spending from across Ontario, Quebec, and beyond. Many of those visitors travel by road — and an RV is often the vehicle of choice for families planning multi-stop itineraries through Eastern Canada. If fuel costs push travellers to shorten trips or choose closer destinations, Ottawa could feel it in reduced visitor footfall, particularly at attractions outside the urban core.
For a startup like RVezy, the pivot point will be whether the platform's value proposition — affordable, flexible travel — holds up even as the cost of filling a tank climbs. McNaught's platform has the right product for an era of travel experimentation. Whether the fuel math works out for renters this summer is, for now, the big unknown.
Source: Ottawa Business Journal
