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ISTANBUL - Emirates Airline is set to increase the number of its flights from Dubai to Istanbul to 11 a week, airline's regional manager said Wednesday.
The Arab air carrier will schedule two more additional flights every Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, said Bahar Ahmet Birinci, Emirates regional director for Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria.
Birinci said the Dubai-Istanbul was the most lucrative route among European destinations with a 87 percent occupancy rate.
"We are targeting to carry 90 thousand people on this route and a 27 million euro turnover," Birinci said.

As Turkey becomes an increasingly popular holiday destination for Brits, Pegasus Airlines is launching another flight to Istanbul.
The new flight from Stansted airport to Istanbul and Ercan in Northern Cyprus on Fridays will be Pegasus’ fifth on this route. Flights will depart Stansted at 13.15 and arrive in Istanbul at 18.50. Return flights leave at 10.40 and arrive at Stansted at 12.25. Fares start from £40 one way including taxes and charges.

“By investing in London and increasing the frequency on this route, we are able to offer our valued customers greater choice and flexibility than ever before appealing to holiday makers and business travellers alike, especially with the wide availability of quick and easy connecting flights from our Istanbul hub to 16 destinations around Turkey and North Cyprus,” explains Pegasus Airlines chairman, Ali Sabanci.

It was only last month that Pegasus announced a fourth weekly flight from Stansted to Istanbul, demonstrating the demand on this route. Low cost carrier easyJet is set to launch flights from Gatwick to Istanbul in December. And Scottish low cost airline Flyglobespan will launch new flights to the Turkish resort of Dalaman from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports next summer.

The growing popularity of Turkish holidays this year has come as Brits look for better value due to the weakness of the pound against the euro. Many travel agents are reporting that Turkey has been more popular than the traditional British favourite Spain.

The 16 connecting domestic routes Pegasus offers across Turkey makes it easy to reach some of the most popular Turkish resorts from Istanbul, including Dalaman and Antalya on the Turkish Riviera, and Bodrum and Izmir on the Aegean Sea.

Confirming what many have long suspected, Istanbul is officially the most crowded city in Europe.

Two other Turkish cities are also among the top 10. Ankara, Turkey's capital, ranks fourth, as the Aegean city of İzmir comes in at nine, according to a list released by Eurostat, the European Union statistics institution.

Istanbul's population is just under 10 million, according to the Eurostat figures. London ranks as the second-most crowded city, with a population of 7.43 million, as Paris ranks third with a population of 6.4 million. The other most crowded cities are Ankara at 3.4 million, Berlin at 3.39 million, Madrid at 3 million, Athens at 2.88 million, Rome at 2.55 million and İzmir at 2.39 million.

The Eurostat figures show that in Europe 65 million people live in 26 cities with a population of more than 1 million.

Brussels ranks first among 20 European cities for the highest number of thefts. London is second, while Amsterdam ranks third in this ignominious category. No Turkish cities appeared on the list in this category.

Eurostat also announced a list of European cities with the highest number of car thefts, in which several Italian cities compete with each other for top honors.

Istanbul stands out from the crowd as giving the best investment opportunities in Europe offering low risk and high growth with previous property investors seeing a growth of 42% since February last year.

Price Waterhouse Coopers and the Urban Land Institute (ULI) named property in Istanbul as Europe’s top performing hotspot for overall growth and capital returns last year. The reasons behind the growth of the property market in Istanbul are based on solid facts of supply and demand, population growth and availability of finance, i.e. real social factors as opposed to the speculative factors that are so often given for many other property markets.

Istanbul is an ancient city and today, 15 million people are trying to live in a space built to hold a fraction of that number. The government has instituted enormous plans to revolutionise the way people live and move around the city. The key to this is the creation of 2 major new overflow suburbs, one built to the West around Bahcesehir, the second to the South around the Kurtkoy/Pendik area.

To relieve the housing problems there are now many suburbs springing up on the outskirts of the city, where the main investment potential of Istanbul lies. These suburbs will house satellite towns which stand in stark contrast to the city centre and will include all the facilities required for modern day living – parks, leisure facilities, shopping centres, cinemas, hospitals, schools and luxury housing - yet most are only 20 minutes from the centre of the city and airports.

Major new transport routes are joining them to the city and it is these areas that the government foresees as becoming the future residential heartlands of Istanbul. Some of these developments are offering guaranteed price increases of 35% plus, making investing in these areas an extremely attractive prospect.

With the large number of international corporations establishing offices in Istanbul, the rental potential is excellent within the business sector and the tourist market, which attracted 3 million tourists in June with Istanbul accounting for 20% of this figure, and the new mortgage options in Turkey are set to transform the market over the coming decade.

The investment potential of Istanbul is immense, and anyone with the foresight to buy property now is bound to reap rewards both from price increases and the rental market.

A low-cost airline has announced that new services between the UK and Turkey are to be launched later this year.

Budget carrier easyJet has confirmed direct flights between London Gatwick and Istanbul will commence operations in December.

The airline believes that more than 100,000 passengers will travel on the new service within its first 12 months.

"Istanbul is the only city in the world that embraces two continents," easyJet commented.

"[It] is a spellbinding combination of past and present."

The carrier added that the Turkish city offers attractions including history, culture and natural beauty.

Meanwhile, Exeter International Airport has highlighted Turkey as one of the main hotspots for its customers last month.

According to the transport hub, there was a "notable" take-up of flights to the European country in August.

The airport added that last month's overall passenger numbers were one per cent up on the same period of the previous year.

The Turkish Tourism Ministry and the private sector will contribute a budget of $320 million to strengthen Turkey’s tourism sector and expand to new markets via advertising. The budget will be used to retain Turkey’s current status among crucial tourism markets, as well as to focus on advertising in new markets. Turkey aims to attract 25 million tourists and receive $25 billion in tourism revenue in 2008, but the new promotional activities will increase tourist numbers to 60 million by 2012 and increase tourism revenue to $50 billion. The advertising activities also aim to expand Turkey’s tourism season to 12 months of the year.

Turkey's impressive economic performance has attracted a flood of inward investment in recent years - close to $10bn-worth in 2005 - as multinationals have sought to cash in on the potential of a fast-growing country with a young population and a prime geographical position between Europe and Asia. European Union membership is on the horizon, albeit challenged by some member countries, and a solid reformist government is in power. Inflation has been brought under control, growth has been strong, at about 7 per cent, and a series of strong home-grown business has sprung up.

Automobile sector plays a vital role in Turkey's economy and it has taken an important place in the export mix from the country. The automobile export in 2007 from Turkey was nearly 75% of its total auto production, a straight growth of 18% from the previous year. Increasing export volumes are making Turkey the next export hub for automobile, says the research report - "Turkey Automobile Sector Forecast (2008-2012)"

The emergence of Turkey as an export centre is attracting major players from across the world to invest in the auto sector. In fact, FDI inflow in the sector has been continuously increasing from past few years on account of Turkey's strategic location and closeness with both European and the Middle East countries. Various automobile giants have made Turkey a gateway to enter the European auto markets and taking the benefits of government incentives

The report studies the Turkish automobile market, comprising of passenger cars, commercial vehicles, tractors, and automotive component market, comprehensively. It also evaluates the export market and opportunities for the automobile industry and its associated industries. .

In central areas of the city, the price-per-square-meter is currently over $8,000. Many foresee that the prices of buildings in the central districts of the city, such as Beyoğlu, Etiler, Levent and Mecidiyeköy, will experience a three-fold increase, reaching the values of buildings on London's Oxford Street or in New York's Manhattan district, within 10 years. Meanwhile, the price of buildings located on the shores of the Bosporus is becoming comparable to levels in Tokyo, where the price-per-square-meter stands at $30,000.

Istanbul is still among the cheapest metropolitan cities in the world, with per-square-meter prices of buildings sitting at $1,000 in new areas of the city. However, the prices of buildings in Istanbul's Akatlar, Ulus, Beyoğlu, Bebek, Zincirlikuyu and Maslak districts are expected to reach the levels of New York's Wall Street and Manhattan areas, London's Oxford Street and Spain's Barcelona, which have square meter prices standing at $20,000.

The prices of the buildings located on the city's historic peninsula are expected to grow in value in not very long following the construction of luxury residence projects. The widespread belief is that the price-per-square-meter of buildings in Beyoğlu, Sultanahmet, the Golden Horn, Ortaköy, Üsküdar and on Bağdat Street will grow, surpassing $5,000 within a short period, putting them on par with the world's renowned tourism destinations.

Experts believe that the Cihangir and Tarlabaşı districts in particular will grow in value considerably, and current price levels support those expectations. �Istanbul is such a city that it might be ranked among the top 10 countries, with respect to the values of its buildings, as the city boasts an advantageous geographic location and high trade volume,� said one expert. �The land to construct new buildings in the central regions of Istanbul is extremely limited and this situation necessitates the construction of new buildings in place of the existing old buildings. In addition, the historical and cultural heritage and tourist pull of Istanbul are all pros of the city,� the unnamed expert added.

Regions that have buildings with high prices are limited, while prices in Istanbul are generally low, according to experts. �The price-per-square-meter of a building that targets middle income groups stands at $1,500 to $2,000 in Istanbul currently. Meanwhile, these levels reach approximately $18,000 in Paris and reach $25,000 in some of the famous touristic islands of the world,� said another expert.

It was possible to purchase a 60 to 70-square-meter building at YTL 150,000 to 200,000 in Cihangir a couple of years ago; however these levels have increased considerably recently and have reached YTL 350,000.

Tokyo has the highest building prices of any metropolitan city in the world, with the price-per-square-meter standing at $30-35,000. Meanwhile, Barcelona is categorized as the cheapest metropolitan city, while Munich and Athens are the fastest growing. Average per-square-meter-prices of buildings in Manhattan are $20,000, while this level stands at $18,000 in London. The price-per-square-meter of buildings on Istanbul's Bağdat Street and in Beyoğlu stand at approximately $7,000 to $8,000.

LONDON (Thomson IM) - Moscow and Istanbul have displaced London and Paris as the top-ranked cities for real estate investment prospects, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey published recently. The survey appears in PWC's report, Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe, co-published with the Urban Land Institute. It reflects the views of more than 485 property market participants including investors, developers, property companies, lenders, brokers and consultants.

According to Knight Frank, Turkey's property market is proving to be amazingly resilient, with prices expected to rise by 10-15 per cent this year. Added to that, the currency exchange company Moneycorp reports that British interest in Turkish property has trebled in the past year.

To underline the point, a NatWest survey of mortgage lenders predicts that Turkey - where 22,650 Brits own property - will be the third most popular destination for UK buyers in the next three years, with most sticking to the area between Kusadasi on the Aegean coast and Alanya on the Med. Improving infrastructure

In its attempts to double tourist numbers to 10 million by 2010, the Turkish government is investing in infrastructure and attractions, including new golf courses in Dalaman and Belek. It is also encouraging new air routes and airport expansion. For example, EasyJet now flies to Dalaman and Istanbul, BA to Antalya.

A new international airport at Edremit will also open up other areas around Ayvalik, north of Izmir, which until now, despite good beaches, great windsurfing and attractive property, were almost solely the preserve of Turkish buyers. Turkey is also drawing investors to Istanbul, where new developments are springing up on both sides of the Bosphorus."

Buying a holiday home may not be top of everyone's to-do list this summer, but a place on the Turkish coast can cost as little as £29,500. Tempted? An astute couple could acquire one with a small deposit and a credit card each: credit card companies are still offering 0% interest for up to 15 months to those with good credit ratings.
Why is Turkey still so cheap? The country's economy is only just starting to mature and inflation has fallen considerably in the past few years. Low incomes and a predominantly cash-dominated economy have kept prices low, although these are beginning to rise. Prices are still well below the EU average, and since the Turkish property market was opened up to foreign buyers in 2003 British buyers have flooded into the popular cities such as Istanbul, and the coastal resorts of Altinkum and Bodrum. These investors are expecting a big increase in property values when Turkey's negotiations for EU membership succeed.

Background

The £29,500 property is a 38 sq m, one-bedroom apartment in the Royal Gardens Resort, 45 minutes drive from Bodrum airport and 100 metres from the beach. Overlooking the sea and nestling in the hillside, the resort is made up of one, two and three bedroom apartments, five bedroom semi-detached and four bedroom detached villas. All have panoramic sea views from the large terrace. The 70sqm two-bed apartments start from £48,500, the three bedroom apartments start at £54,500, the semi-detached villas are priced at £98,500 and the four bedroom detached villas are on the market at £124,500.
There is a wide range of shops on site as well as restaurants, cafes, supermarkets, bars, shuttle bus, 24 hour security, children’s play area and pool, and many sports facilities. The properties are all fully air conditioned with white goods, marble floors, barbecue, double glazing with fly screens, and many other extras included in the price.
Completion is planned for next May. Rental income should kick in almost immediately with the beginning of the summer season.
Key4 International – 08456 201010 info@key4international.com

Fast facts

• The Turkish economy is booming and with it demand for homes from locals and foreigners; the fledgeling mortgage industry has boosted the housing market.
• The foreign exchange company FC Exchange says that demand is strong among British buyers who have ruled out Spain and Cyprus.
• Hotspots include Bodrum, Fetiye, Antalya, Marmarisand other tourism centres, but there is also much investor interest in Istanbul, which suffers a dire shortage of homes.
• Expect to pay an average £1,130 a sq m in Istanbul or £950 elsewhere, according to the Global Property Guide.
• Property Secrets says prices have risen as much as 30 per cent a year for the past three years.
• Rental returns are strong: Where To Buy Property Abroad: 2008 (Crimson) reports that yields are at 16 per cent in the summer in resorts - and 10 to 12 per cent in Istanbul and Ankara.
• Buyers should budget 10 per cent of the purchase price for legal fees, taxes and other costs, according to Buy Association.