Shooting Sky High

The Phuket Gazette.
As the world recovers from the global financial crisis, two important trends shadow the future of a changing property and tourism market in Phuket.
The first is a strong shift towards Phuket and greater Asia seeing less reliance on the West to fuel their crucial tourism-based economies.
The second is a shift from the lucrative off-plan and new home sales that dominated the “boom years” (the first decade of the new millennium) on Phuket, towards a booming re-sales and rentals market that is taking the lion's share of property transactions.
Island real estate has seen the rise from the ashes of the global economic crises in a new light as rentals and resales represent the vast majority of activity in the sector.
An estimated 50% of market transactions in 2009 were in existing luxury villas, condos and vacation homes, and this figure has grown in 2010 to near epic proportions.
With the shifting market trends, many are wondering what changes will also come to the demographic of tourists visiting the island. Property owners want to know where the next buyers and tourists are going to come from.
Using April of this year in Singapore as an example, with visitor arrivals up over the same month last year by 20%, over half of these came from regional locations like China, Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Australia.
As the world recovers from the global economic crisis, the influx of incoming tourists seems to be defined by the length of a plane ride to Phuket. Currently, the majority of inbound tourists step off plane flights of eight hours or less – quite a switch from the former standard of about 18 for the incoming Europeans.
Door-to-door travel time, shorter stays that rely on volume of visitors, discount tourist-generator offers and astronomical growth of low-cost airline carriers are all key pieces of the puzzle.
Should AirAsia be a new member of the United Nations? Interesting twists and turns reveal what could be an interesting new trend in the next decade.
I wholeheartedly buy into the concept that after what happened in 2007, Wall Street, Lehman's and the rest will simply never be the same as they were.
While some businesses rely on the old model of, “wait, watch and listen,” and keenly reminisce about the good old days, successful companies will find a way to transform and adapt their working business models.
Viewing the world of travel on a much larger scale, it's hard to ignore the effect that the massive political debate on climate change has had on different aspects of everyday life, air travel being no exception.
A recent article in the International Herald Tribune highlighted the UK Conservative Party's recent public denouncement of “binge flying” for Brits. A quick and decisive cancellation of expansion plans for Heathrow – the world's fifth-busiest airport – surprised many and was not a promising sign for those hoping for an increase in European travelers.
Also put on the back burner were expansion plans at Gatwick and Stansted, both key hubs for budget carriers.
While the whole strange brew of Eastern and Western expats makes an interesting conjecture, be it for the long or short haul, we find ourselves increasingly in an unpredictable and topsy turvy world at present.
Though I'd have to say eight hours and under looks to be a game changer anyway you look at it.