The latest trend of Thais buying London property at Bangkok property exhibitions shouldn’t come as a big surprise when you realise that spending in the United Kingdom by tourists from the Land of Smiles was outpacing that from all other countries during the first five months of this year.
Spending by Thai visitors to the U.K. jumped 70 percent during that time, almost double the rise seen by Chinese buyers according to data from consultancy Global Blue.
Some 75,000 Thai tourists visited the U.K. in 2012. Currently, according to Global Blue, Thais are spending £762 per single transaction, which is 20 percent more than last year and almost as high as the £768 spent by Chinese tourists.
A spokesman for Harrods was recently quoted as saying that he had seen a “marked increase” in the number of Thai customers, making them among the store’s “most prominent international visitors”.
Bangkok saw four separate London property exhibitions last month alone and DDproperty.com understands at least eight more projects are planning to travel to Thailand before the end of the year to showcase their properties to local buyers.
Before this year an overseas property exhibition in Bangkok was almost unheard of, but the new trend is likely testament to the growing wealth among the top end of Thai society.
The city still has a long way to go though; nearby Singapore sees anything up to eight separate U.K. property exhibitions taking place every single weekend.
Andrew Batt, International Group Editor of PropertyGuru Group, wrote
this story. To contact him about this or other stories email andrew@propertyguru.com.sg
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