Legal Issues Relating to Temporary Accommodation Business

Abstract

This Research principally aims at studying temporary daily accommodation service businesses according of the Hotel Act B.E. 2547 (the Act), such as service apartments, guest houses, condominiums, resort, and air-bed-breakfast (AIRBNB), which will be cited in this Research as “temporary accommodations”.

In addition to the general description on the unique nature of the temporary accommodations, the Research shall explore legal issues appertaining to them, and the ways and means to resolve these issues.

The Research finds, inter alia, that the Act is applicable to any living places which provide accommodation services to person for consideration. The Act, however, is not applicable to 1) temporary accommodations run by governmental organs, or for charity aims, or for educational purposes; 2) accommodation places which provide services for consideration on a monthly basis; and 3) any other places which are provided by regulations of the Ministry of Interior. By virtue of the Act Article 4 (3) above, the Ministry of Interior has issued Ministerial Regulation B.E. 2551. Article 1 of the Regulation provides that “any place which has rooms in single or several buildings and has total guests less than 20 persons, which is established to provide temporary accommodations to travelers or other persons for consideration to supplement providers’ normal income, and has been registered with the Registrar in accordance with the form to be provided by the Minister of Interior, is not hotel”.

Accordingly, the Act is not applicable to the temporary accommodations because the temporary accommodations are not hotels. Furthermore, at present, it seems that there is no any other legislation generally applicable to the Temporary accommodations, nor is there any legislation specifically applicable to them.

As a result, there seems to be a legal lacuna in the law to control the temporary accommodations. The legal lacuna creates uncertainty, and uncertainty produces negative effects, on the businesses which bring a huge real income to Thailand. Therefore, in my opinion, Thailand should amend Hotel Act, B.E. 2547. for covering the administration of temporary accommodation.