Decision Making of Real Estate Companies to Participate in the Government Project, Thailand Elite Flexible One, during the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2021

Abstract

Due to the situation in 2020-2021, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the whole Thai economy, particularly the real estate market. Therefore, the government has a guideline to help entrepreneurs by creating the Elite Flexible One program. The research is intended to study Thai real estate companies that have decided to join the EFO program, with 18 real estate development companies divided into 3 sizes: large companies, medium-sized companies, and small companies. Interviews were conducted with 5 small companies in which the data was systematically analyzed and linked together, the importance of the data was more clearly demonstrated when deciding to join Elite Flexible One program to draw conclusions.

 According to the results of the study, 1) Real estate developers decided to join the EFO program in response to the government's economic stimulus measures, to increase business opportunities, to help support sales, to expand their foreign customer base and to persuade clients approaching retirement age to live in Thailand. 2) The use of integrated marketing communications to help sell projects that participate in EFO, both directly and indirectly, in order to be known among foreign customers, i.e. large companies will use integrated marketing communications in all aspects of online marketing, public relations, and promotion than medium and small companies. 3) As a result of participating in the EFO program, the advantages: help support sales and provide convenience to foreign customers; Restrictions: The price of 10 million baht is still too high and the EFO card cannot work in Thailand; Suggestions: EFO cards can work in Thailand, the government considers to extend the visa period to 10 years and reduce the price of joining the former EFO program from 10 million baht, etc.

This research shows that the majority of real estate developers' decisions to join the Elite Flags One program are based on the idea of gaining exposure to their international clients through government programs. The results of the study will benefit the government in using the results to improve measures to help the real estate field in the future.