Assetz® News - Cape tourism keeps property pot bubbling

Cape tourism keeps property pot bubbling

5th November 2008 |

With so many property markets around the world struggling, many who are looking to invest in property will be scratching their heads trying to think of good prospects.

Others, however, will be looking to Cape Verde and may already have got involved in a market that is continuing to grow.

According to Cape Verde Property, there is one straight and simple explanation for this: Tourism. The firm has noted that between 2004 and 2007, the number of visitors to the small archipelago off the west coast of Africa increased by 15 per cent.

Commenting on this, managing director Adrian Lillywhite insisted that the trend is not changing. He said: "The interest in Cape Verde as a holiday destination is certainly not waning. With charter flights from the UK frequently full and new hotel complexes such as the Riu on Boa Vista due to open next month the demand is clearly there."

He added: "This in turn is having a positive effect on the island's property market; a new €2.2 billion (£1.78 billion) resort on Boa Vista has been recently announced for example, indicating the confidence that developers still have in the market despite the current global financial situation."

This is clearly a situation which could provoke interest from investors with the funds to spend. The fact that tourist numbers are continuing to rise may be particularly telling, partly because this has been happening despite the economic problems of the past year and also since if the numbers of western visitors - including Britons - is rising now, it may be that yet more will come in the future when the economy is in better shape.

Of course, Britons are not the only people who visit the islands from overseas - after all, the most obvious connection the islands have is with former colonial rulers Portugal. But, it has been noted, this historical link may be a good reason why UK tourists are prominent among those who are helping to drive the property market.

This point has been explained by Richard Trillo, co-author of the Rough Guide for West Africa, who said the fact that Britons have been holidaying in the Algarve region in large numbers since the 1960s, alongside the close relationship between Britain and Portugal down the centuries, both help to make the appeal of a country with a lusophone culture that much greater.

He remarked: "The British have been buying lots of houses in Portugal. Cape Verde is just an extension for people who have been to Portugal, except it's sunnier all year round as a tropical West African country."

Mr Trillo added that the growth of tourism has also been helped in the last two years by the arrival of direct flights from Britain to the islands.

Therefore, it seems, the connection between Britain and Cape Verde was always there to be made in cultural and historic terms. Now it exists physically. If this leads to further tourism growth, Cape Verde may continue to buck the trend, whatever is happening elsewhere in the world.