Outrigger Chain to Manage Laguna Phuket Rental Properties

It's been announced today that Laguna Phuket and Hawaii's Outrigger group have entered into an agreement for the management of the resorts rental properties. Outrigger Laguna Resort and Villas will be a mix of residential villas, town homes and apartments which will be operated by the end of this year. A total of 309 units will eventually operate as resort rentals with half coming on line in 2009 and the remainder though 2011.
With a growing number of residential units coming on line there is a trend in using branded hotel operators to market these for holiday rentals and to compete with established hotel products. Additionally property investors caught in the market downturn have created pressure to view rental yields as a method in obtaining returns versus just relying on capital appreciation upon exiting their investments.
Laguna had previously managed some residential units through the Sheraton Grande Resort, though typically institutional hotels are not geared up to operate freestanding villas, condos and townhouses. At the same time there is reportedly a split between the Allamanda condo hotel which is three separately registered condominium juristic persons (CJP'S) and the fate of the consolidated hotel operation there looks to be very much in doubt.
It will be interesting as residential projects start to becoming increasingly competitive to hotels how hotel licensing, hotel taxation and municipal rental tax issues are addressed since this is considered a significant gray area in current legislation. Currently many villa operations are unable to obtain hotel licenses due to a lack of clarity in the Thai hotel act and the subsequent taxation that applies to hotels cannot be implemented.