The View From the Beach

Off to another villa open house in a few minutes. This time we’re headed to Villa Mako. This villa has an interesting story: The owners are long time Bali afficionados. They lived here in the region, working out of, I believe Hong Kong (or Singapore?) and had considered building The Bali Dream Home for ages. Finally, though, they found an existing house on a great piece of land and decided to renovate — a virtually unheard of decision here. (They bought from Elite Havens, by the way!).

They went through a couple of developers before they found the right partner, but they eventually got it right. The result is lovely. It is really a tribute to perserverance, dedication to a vision and a job well done.

The photo, above is may favorite of the first set of images — I think because I know the place and to me this sort of casual, relaxed elegance totally describes the place. Makes you want to hang out there. Chill.

The property is managed by BHM and will now be open for rental. It will see it’s first commercial guests this Christmas. ’twere it I….

One of our staffers put together a list of the golf courses here in Bali for a client today. Thought it might be of interest to some of you:

Bali Golf and Country Club,

http://www.balibeachgolfcourse.com/

Nirwana Golf and Country Club:

http://www.nirwanabaligolf.com/

Bali Golf and Country Club, Nusa Dua Bali:

http://www.baligolfandcountryclub.com/golf.html

Bali Handara Kosaido:

http://www.balihandarakosaido.com/

The villa market in neighboring Lombok seems to be showing some signs of life. Lombok has always been sort of Bali’s sleepy next door neighbor — with most people touching ground on the main island only long enough to hop a ferry to the Gilis. But, little by little the hotel scene has been growing and accommodations across the board improving. The airport’s inclusion on the list of destinations capable of granting visas on arrival kept the destination open as a possible first arrival point. Unfortunately the primary market for that service — Australia — has been less than lukewarm on the whole Indonesian experience for the last year or so.

So, with some suprise, I’ve been seeing several interesting villa properties emerge in the last couple of months. The new 18 hole golf course near the departure terminals for the Gilis is one factor and part of a growing trend towards providing luxury services.

Watch this space…

This was another weekend of checking out new properties. Friday night I got my first look at the recently-completed villa Indah Manis. Though they are still finishing off the spa, the villa is largely complete and ready to go. This is a lovely 5 bedroom property in Pecatu Hills. The villa is divides into two private units, a 4 bedroom main complex and a separate 1 bedroom “honeymoon suite.” With two pools, a gym, a spa, a billards table and a guest office, this villa has just about everything you could want. It’s the latest in a trend towards “destination villas,” that is, villas where which are a destination in and of themselves. BHM is just completing the set up operations for this property (we manage this one) and we expect it to be taking guests shortly after the New Year. No photos yet, but stay tuned…

Meanwhile the rest of the BHM team was taking a management stay at Villa Coraffan in Canggu (see photo below in the entry concerning the Villa Coraffan launch party). I dropped by today for lunch. It’s a great casual villa. Cool, comfortable and a perfect place to lounge around the pool. Villa Coraffan has 4 bedrooms with a media room which converts into a 5th bedroom. Two of the bedrooms have a “crow’s nest” — ascend a steep narrow staircase from within the bedroom and enter a tiny balcony — room for one — which looks out over the rice fields. You can bet I’d be curled up there with a book the whole time I was at the property.

The variety in accommodations is really one of the most special aspects of the whole villa experience and I am sure one of the main reasons people keep coming back again and again…

‘Tis the season, or rather, nearly so. The Christmas/New Years’ period is one of the island’s two tradition Peak Seasons (the other being August). Looking at the number, 2006 is shaping up to be an excellent year. While it is doubtful Elite Havens will exceed the record 2005 performance, we will get very very close.

The strength of the seasonal bookings is consistent with the way the market here has firmed up across 2006. The first Quarter put on a very poor showing, but things began to bounce back in Q2; by Q3 things were moving at an excellent rate.

Looking forward, the first Quarter of 2007 is already showing signs of out-perfoming the same period in both 2006 and 2005. We’re keeping our fingers crossed, but the Bali market seems to be very resilient to disruption — particularly at the luxury end of the market where we tend to focus all our activities.

The trends hold true both for our agency business (Elite Havens) and our wholesale business (BHM). But, in all fairness, BHM’s gains are also partially attributable to the increase in inventory in 2006 — we’ve basically doubled the size of the catalog — and to the increase in the number of agents in our network.

Rentals is not the only group that is doing well as we move through the last Quarter; Sales enquiry volumes are up. The sales market is complex and there are a variety of factors at work here. Certainly, though, we’re getting a boost from our new sales website, www.EliteHavensSales.com, which began generating a phenomenal number of page views right out of the gate (over 1,000 pages a day in its first month — amazing).

Adding it all up, I can’t help but reach the conclusion that Bali villas, Bali vacations and Bali properties are hot again. I plan to sit back, be merry and enjoy the season.