M&N

I’ve been a long-time follower of the forum, but this will be my first time posting. I was just wondering if anyone has ever run a hotel, guesthouse, or motel business in Australia, because I would be very interested to get some feedback – both positive and negative experiences. I’m a Pom with Australian citizenship and my wife’s Aussie. We decided to have a sea-change almost three years ago so we upped sticks from Brissie and moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, where we’ve been running a small guesthouse. On the whole it’s been great but our three-year lease will soon be up and we’ve decided to move on to pastures new. I‘d give it another three years here but my wife is keen to get back to family and friends. Now we have some experience under our belts, we are thinking about leasing a small motel business in Queensland or Northern NSW. We’ll need to sell our house in Brisbane (which we’ve been renting out) to finance this so there's some risk involved, but we are both up for the challenge and would like to do this for the next 10-15 years until we retire. I’m assuming that you don’t need any special qualifications to run the motel in Australia, but I imagine there’s a lot more compliance than in Thailand to deal with. I’ve already done a fair amount of research but I would be very grateful to hear from anyone with experience, who can point out potential fit pitfalls. Many thanks in advance! Maree & Nathan.