Tourism 
Tourism "boosting Thai property"
Thailand’s biggest
international real estate provider, CB Richard Ellis, has reported
soaring interest in holiday home investment, which it attributes to
booming tourism and an increase in flight links.
In Phuket, the
firm reports a 32 per cent increase in transactions from the third to
last quarter of 2007, with a 59 per cent increase in their value, based
on the latest statistics from the Land Department. While villas prices
doubled from 2000 to 2006, CBRE said: “Phuket remains globally
competitive. Prices and interest remain solid.”
Market
enthusiasm is attributed to growing tourism, with tourist arrivals to
Phuket exceeding 5 million last year, complimented by a robust 22.5 per
cent increase in visitors to Thailand. These included many from new
tourism sources, such as Russia, the UAE, Switzerland and eastern
European countries. “As a result, there is a broader global customer
base for high-end villas. Previously, most customers were expatriates
from Hong Kong and Singapore. Now we are seeing a rise in demand from
NRIs, Russians and Eastern Europeans,” said CBRE.
Airlines have
responded to demand, most notably with new connections from regional
budget carriers. From Singapore, budget airline Tiger Airways is
supporting Silk Air connections. Air Asia has introduced new flights
from Kuala Lumpur, and introduces daily flights between Macau and
Phuket in May 2008.
Dragon Air is meanwhile upgrading its
Phuket-Hong Kong route in peak seasons with larger aircraft and 90
international chartered flights in the last high season from October
2007 to March 2008, which represented a 150 per cent increase from last
year. With new flight links, investors are also looking for
opportunities beyond Phuket to areas such as Phang Nga, Krabi and
outlying islands in the Andaman Sea, said the realtor.
Source: http://www.property-report.com/aprarchives.php?id=1475&date=260508
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