Berlin (Reuters) - Car rental companies are recording more bookings due to the upcoming longest strike in the history of Deutsche Bahn.

"We are currently observing a significant increase in demand throughout Germany this week," a spokesperson for the listed car rental company Sixt told the news agency Reuters on Tuesday. Its network in Germany includes almost 350 stations.

Competitor Europcar emphasized that it still had plenty of vehicles available. "However, it could be tight up to and including Wednesday, as we have already received numerous bookings," said Tobias Zisik, Managing Director of Europcar Mobility Group Germany. Europcar has more than 300 stations across Germany.

The train drivers' union GDL has called for a strike from Wednesday to Monday. Intermediary portals are now aggressively recruiting people to change trains. "Bye bye train nonsense, hello car sharing", is the message in circulars from billiger-mietwagen.de, a provider of car rental and car sharing services.

Despite rising demand, car rental companies are giving hope to those who are in urgent need of transportation. "Experience has shown that many customers are still rescheduling," said Europcar manager Zisiki. "This means that it is quite possible that there will be some cancellations and that rental cars will be available again." From Thursday, things look very good again throughout Germany.

According to economists, the rail strike is costing the domestic economy dearly. "A one-day nationwide rail strike costs around 100 million euros a day in economic output," said Michael Grömling, head of economic affairs at the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW Köln), which is close to employers, to Reuters. With the now announced strike duration of six days, the costs would no longer increase linearly, but would multiply in some cases. "We are quickly looking at a billion euros in damage," said Grömling.

Commerzbank chief economist Jörg Krämer has a similar assessment. It is estimated that the strike will only reduce value creation in the transport sector by 30 million euros per day. "Much greater economic damage would occur if factories had to shut down their production due to supply problems," warned Krämer. "In addition, the rail strike is putting a strain on people's nerves and tarnishing Germany's already tarnished image as a business location."

(Report by Rene Wagner, edited by Ralf Banser - If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com)