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Hotel business in downtown Bangkok continues to grow through the period 2019-2021 in line with growth in the number of visitors to the capital, especially to the city center. It is forecast that in these three years, the number of foreign and domestic tourists staying in hotels in Bangkok will rise by 4% and 7% per year, respectively, and this will then help to lift the occupancy rate for hotel accommodation in downtown Bangkok to 79-80%, compared to a national occupancy rate of 71.5-72.5%.

The construction industry is expected to recover over the next 3 years, with total construction spending forecast to rise by 4.5-5.0% in 2021 and then by 5.0-5.5% in 2022-2023. A major driver will be public-sector spending on infrastructure megaprojects, especially in the Eastern Economic Corridor, where investment in government-backed projects will encourage crowding-in of private-sector investment (e.g., in industrial estates). Beyond this, the gradual recovery of the Thai economy will also support greater investment in residential accommodation and commercial properties. And, there will be new opportunities in neighboring countries as their governments continue to improve national infrastructure in response to continued economic growth and urbanization.

Through 2019, the housing market in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR) is expected to keep growth flat or slow down due to a high base effect in 2018. The market will also encounter headwinds in the form of: (i) the new, stricter regulations governing housing debt that determine loan limits on a loan-to-value ratio; (ii) the introduction of the Land and Building Tax Act, which will come into effect in 2020; and (iii) a weakening of the spending power of overseas (and especially Chinese) buyers caused by a softening of the world economy. These factors may then feed into higher operating costs, and a decline in both investor confidence and the willingness of buyers to purchase new properties. However, in 2020 and 2021, the market is expected to rebound on the effects of government spending on major infrastructure projects and on greater demand for accommodation from non-Thai buyers investing or working in Thailand.

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