The British buyer's interest in the property in Egypt has boosted the number and frequency of flights to the Red Sea resorts, according to a leading flight company.
The news comes on top of research revealed by M&S Money which found that there has been a 20 per cent increase in sales of the Egyptian pound in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008. The study also showed that sales of the Turkish lira jumped by 46 per cent and that 36 per cent of Brits take the strength of the destination currency into account when planning their holidays abroad.
The increasing expat population of the luxury resorts of Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada is helping to boost the expansion of flights linking the UK to Egypt. The Globespan Group has claimed that more and more frequent services to the Red Sea Riviera are the result of more Brits moving permanently out of the UK to the sunshine hotspot.
Chief Executive Rick Green said, “More Brits are buying property in Egypt which, as a low-cost provider, helps us develop our route network planning and also as a leisure provider for the beach and culture market.”
Egypt, and Sharm El Sheikh in particular, have been popular with tourists for a few years now, and what remains to be seen is whether the increase in property ownership overseas has the same effect on flights to other destinations. Bulgaria now has a range of flights from the UK which have been influenced by the numbers of British property buyers who flocked to the country in the past few years. Morocco also has more than 20 low-cost airline routes into the country from across Europe as part of the government-backed push to attract residential tourism to the country.
As more off-plan developments in other property hotspots are completed and come on stream in the coming months and years, the airline industry is likely to see increased demand to destinations such as Cape Verde, Brazil and Panama.
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