Newspaper Features: 2010
Archive of Bill's regular newspaper columns.
From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Shrinking Euro Hits Phuket
The Phuket Gazette.It's June and the pigs are off and running in Europe. In this case, it's the possible meltdown of the economies of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. The Greeks have already hit the streets in...
Posted: Sat 26 Jun, 2010 11:41 am | Viewed: 216
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Defining The Property Boom
The Phuket Gazette.Riding a bull market is never an easy thing, and at times could mimic one of those mechanical contraptions that threw many aspiring cowboys into dazed 'n confusionville. Looking back at my time on...
Posted: Sat 19 Jun, 2010 11:44 am | Viewed: 153
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From the Nation: Exile on Euro Street
The Nation.We've all heard of the Running of the Bulls, and being chased by the Bears of Wall Street, but now there is a new creature on the block, and we can hear the thundering of PIGS in the air. Only in this case...
Posted: Fri 18 Jul, 2010 11:30 am | Viewed: 100
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: In The Shade Of Mixed-Use Property
The Phuket Gazette.Glossy ads and promises of investment returns that hit the moon abound. Seduced by an illusion of vacations for life in some tropical paradise, just sit back and have another mojito and settle into an...
Posted: Sat 12 Jun, 2010 11:43 am | Viewed: 135
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Hotel Sales Market Heats Up
The Phuket Gazette.News of hotels being sold because they are in great financial distress is indeed part myth, just like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, and - in part - the 1997 Asian contagion. Two years ago, the...
Posted: Sat 5 Jun, 2010 11:42 am | Viewed: 131
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Taking Time Out From The Media Glare
The Phuket Gazette. For much of this year, Thailand has been in the harsh, bright light of the media. Instant images showing all sorts of mayhem have been beamed on TV around the world, posted on news websites, blogs...
Posted: Tue 29 May, 2010 1:52 pm | Viewed: 119
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From the Nation: Stress Settles In At Condominium Hotels
The Nation. Pigeonholing residential-led hospitality products has never been an easy task. For global brands that love to classify hotel-chain tier segments, the exercise has created absolute chaos in the meeting room...
Posted: Tue 28 May, 2010 1:55 pm | Viewed: 226
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Tri-Asia, LaTour Eye Asian Expansion
The Phuket Gazette. Globalization and localization sometimes offers the best of both worlds, and this is never more evident than the hospitality business. The recently announced joint venture between Phuket's Tri-Asia...
Posted: Tue 22 May, 2010 2:06 pm | Viewed: 149
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Sizing Up The Inland Opportunities
The Phuket Gazette. DURING the spectacular rise of the island's property industry for much of the past decade, land values have mimicked gold and oil as a precious commodity; rising like a thermometer on a sunny day in...
Posted: Tue 15 May, 2010 2:02 pm | Viewed: 122
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Airlift Juggernaut Hits Samui Tourism
The Phuket Gazette. AFTER Phuket, Koh Samui is Thailand's second-most-visited island resort destination. As a ramped-up hotel supply reaches 16,069 rooms, the island is experiencing growing pains as part of its emerging...
Posted: Tue 08 May, 2010 2:04 pm | Viewed: 142
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Property Crosses Into Muddy Waters
The Phuket Gazette.LEAVING without warning is one of the themes for the famous John Hiatt song Crossing Muddy Waters. The recent outcry over the alleged multi-million-dollar fraud case at Purnavarna Resorts - and the...
Posted: Tue 01 May, 2010 2:00 pm | Viewed: 96
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Phuket Tourism At Ground Zero
The Phuket Gazette.While the term ‘ground zero' became the idiom for the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001, the phrase is far older than that, dating at least as far back as the Manhattan Project and the World War II...
Posted: Fri 24 Apr, 2010 9:35 am | Viewed: 273
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From the Nation: It's Phuket Style
The Nation.In a world gone crazy for chain-saw, buzzed up media, it looks like the days of those epic, thick-as-a-brick coffee-table architecture books have thank-fully come to an end. Unless it's for dummies, or those...
Posted: Fri 23 Apr, 2010 12:23 pm | Viewed: 318
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Mai Khao Moves Up Location Chain
The Phuket Gazette.As I find myself cruising the four lane highway toward the newly opened Renaissance Phuket Resort and Spa in Mai Khao, I slam on the brakes to take in an unworldly sight. While the irony of the...
Posted: Fri 17 Apr, 2010 9:31 am | Viewed: 204
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Am I My Brothers Keeper?
The Phuket Gazette.For expats, life in Phuket is sometimes not as ideal as we once imagined. One particluar problem - addiction - seems to be left unspoken by those who are in a position to help. For that reason, my...
Posted: Fri 3 Apr, 2010 9:33 am | Viewed: 164
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Taxes Grow Without Rain
The Phuket Gazette.There is an old proverb that goes, 'taxes grow without rain'. Given both the current water supply shortage and impending tax increases, this adage looks to be a bit stranger than fiction. Last year,...
Posted: Fri 20 Mar, 2010 4:21 pm | Viewed: 262
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From the Nation: The 'Two Ps' of Market Dynamics
The Nation.The government's property-tax stimulus package will expire on March 28, following the Cabinet's recent decision not to renew it. This move has certainly induced demand from domestic buyers, especially for land....
Posted: Fri 19 Mar, 2010 10:39 am | Viewed: 290
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Top Of the Rock in 2010
The Phuket Gazette.As we come out of the peak season, there is fresh optimism in the Phuket property market, and the industry's players are talking about what's hot on the island. Based on research carried out for this...
Posted: Fri 06 Mar, 2010 4:21 pm | Viewed: 407
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: The Imperialism Behind Travel Advice
The Phuket Gazette. It's been a very long time since the phrase ‘the sun never sets on the British Empire' was in vogue, but news that Britain has issued an advisory for travelers to Thailand brings the phrase...
Posted: Mon 01 Mar, 2010 11:28 am | Viewed: 238
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Flashpacking in Cambodia
The Phuket Gazette.The launch of Cambodia's first private island resort, the luxurious Song Saa, turned heads in the local property industry when more than half of its villas were sold in the first two weeks of the...
Posted: Sat 20 Feb, 2010 11:40 am | Viewed: 410
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Discountville Threatens Luxury Market
The Phuket Gazette.It all started when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989. After that, Russia Incorporated dissolved into Western capitalistic fervor, the likes which have not been seen since the untimely (though...
Posted: Sat 06 Feb, 2010 11:36 am | Viewed: 220
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From the Nation: Emerging Property Markets
The Nation.For those of you who are looking to move investments into property, there is one rule of thumb: timing is not everything, it's the only thing. Buying low and selling high is often best done by recognising...
Posted: Sat 19 Feb, 2010 1:07 pm | Viewed: 401
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Willy Wonka's Tourist Factory
The Phuket Gazette.This year's peak season has indeed been a blast from the not so distant past of, say 2006, when tourism numbers were on the rise and the world for the most part was indeed a sunny place. The looming...
Posted: Sat 23 Jan, 2010 9:23 am | Viewed: 305
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: Hail Mary
The Phuket Gazette.Religion and real estate make strange bed-fellows at the best of times. The Tibetans have their prayer wheels, turning the wheels of Dharma, and Catholics say their ‘Hail Marys', but how much faith to...
Posted: Sat 16 Jan, 2010 9:22 am | Viewed: 201
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From the Phuket Gazette Property Watch: The Great Tuk Tuk Debate
The Phuket Gazette.Watching Martin Scorsese's epic film Taxi Driver with star Robert De Niro playing demon-ridden Travis Bickle, who deadpans back when asked why he wanted to be a hack, croaks out, "Because I can't sleep...
Posted: Sat 02 Jan, 2010 9:20 am | Viewed: 352
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