2682 beaches worldwide have received prestigious blue flag awards…

The International Blue Flag organisation has announced its Blue Flag awards for 2007 presenting the renowned accolade across 31 countries for 2628 beaches and 629 marinas.

In order to achieve a Blue Flag, beaches and marinas must comply with a number of stringent criteria. Marinas must consider recyclable waste facilities, have the presence of a map indicating all amenities and have lifesaving facilities including the safety precaution details clearly displayed.

Beach candidates were subject to ongoing evaluation from control visits in 2006 and were judged by a national jury. The beaches were evaluated to ensure the presence of a map indicating all facilities, presence of recyclable waste facilities at the beach and compliance with the water quality criterion.

It is an exciting year for Bulgaria who began with a successful entry into the EU having continued to prosper with an influx of second home purchasers investing in the country and now they have received their first marina Blue Flag along with 10 Blue flags for their beaches.

Spain and Greece top the charts

Lance Nelson of Jet2Let comments: “We are delighted with the result, the Black Sea coast is popular in Bulgaria with nationals as well as overseas visitors; we are seeing people move away from the busy Sunny Beach regions to the more undiscovered areas along the coast. And these beaches can now be enjoyed with the knowledge that they adhere to the Blue Flag requirements.”

Spain, as expected, has received a bumper number of awards, 499 for its beaches and 77 Blue Flags for its marinas. Despite some negative press recently the European tourist honey pot has remained popular and with 576 Blue Flag awards it is little wonder why www.kyero.com, the Spanish property portal has reported that the national average property price remained the same one month on from the Spanish stock market slump at €250,000 (£169,463) confirming its popularity with the holiday home market.

Second in line for the highest number of Blue Flags is Greece, with an impressive 430 for its beaches and 9 for marinas followed by Turkey with 235 Blue Flag standard beaches and 14 marinas.

“Greece, with its thousands of islands, the combination of relatively low prices, a maturing and competitive mortgage ,market and now, the second highest number of Blue Flag accolades in Europe, make it a great second home destination”, according to Irini Tzortzoglou, Head of retail banking for Piraeus Bank London.

Turkey in the spotlight

Turkey is another country which has taken the spotlight this year for overseas property purchasers, and it is clear why investors are lured to Greece’s neighbour, with affordable house prices and now its undisputable fabulous Blue Flag beaches.

Caroline Hollingworth of Hollingworth and Associates says:

“We have seen interest in Turkey increase hugely in 2007; it has been a popular holiday destination with Brits and other Europeans for many years but now people are looking beyond the traditional second home markets for their property investments with Turkey sitting at the top of the list.”