There are benefits to staying in professionally managed holiday homes on your next golf trip

Founder and chief executive Will Creedon established Alloggio Group in 2015 when he realised there was a growth opportunity to professionally manage holiday homes. Alloggio’s focus is on regulated hospitality and to have a point of differentiation between the ‘cowboy operators’ and professionally managed holiday properties.

While the business had its origins in the Hunter Valley and Port Stephens in New South Wales, Alloggio now spans Australia and New Zealand with more than 3,500 properties. During the past two years, Alloggio Group was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, creating the capital to finance the company and ensure further growth over the next 10 years.

For an insight into Alloggio’s business strategy, we interviewed Sam Leo, regional general manager for the NSW Northern Rivers region that includes Byron Bay and Coffs Harbour. The 1-handicap golfer also explained the advantages of choosing Alloggio for your next golf vacation.

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Alloggio has established a reputation for professionally managed holiday homes. What’s your point of difference compared to other short-term rental accommodation providers?

The biggest influencing factor is that we are east coast-based and cover all different regional areas. The benefit of that is that we’ve got locally managed office locations with local staff and local people. But we’ve then got a centralised team where we can start competing with the everyday big business of holidays and accommodation. So in our business model, because we are regional, we take up all those little spaces that things like Mantra hotels and Accor hotels can’t really engage in on a large scale, because their generic hotel style is to have a high rise as such. Being that we are geographically spread out, we’ve then also got a variation of properties ranging from your entry level of $100 per night, up to places that are $8,000 to $10,000 per night.

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Why should golfers consider using Alloggio for their next holiday with a set of clubs instead of a hotel or apartment?

Because it is a home that you’re going into and it’s much easier to access. You haven’t got the restrictions of being in hotels. You’ve got a serviced property. The fact is they can be close to golf courses. They can also be close to the facilities that you’re after… so being privately owned holiday homes, they can be among the community. They can be right on the edge of golf courses. They can be in remote areas and still be 10, 15 minutes’ drive from the golf course. Or right smack in the middle of town, or opposite the beach. Your generic hotels don’t have that full opportunity to have all those different options available for any golfing or holiday guest.

What I love about it is that you’ve got the freedom to go between your 3-star to 5-star luxury properties across our business. Therefore, as a group of people going to play golf somewhere, you can always find somewhere that’s got three, four or five bedrooms with ensuites or shared facilities – therefore making the cost of going away for a golfing escape so much more affordable.

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What’s a common misconception by people when looking for short-term rental accommodation?

One is that they’re not used to how a check-in would work. Therefore, it’s very easy to arrive at a hotel and see a reception desk. Whereas our system is all based on remote access, so you get your code sent to you. It’s a seamless process to check-in and check-out. Also, people aren’t aware that after hours, you’ve still got full support as well. So if there is a problem with the property, you’ve got someone who you can rely on to have whatever the problem is resolved.

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What sort of feedback do you get from people who use Alloggio?

From an owner’s perspective, we’ve got a very highly engaged group of owners, ranging from your mum-and-dad investors through to your top 1 percent of financial wealth in Australia, and internationally, who have highly engaged expectations of their property being managed to a certain level. That same outcome is then delivered to our guests – from the time they arrive to the time they depart – they should feel like they’re coming to their second home… And that seems to be the general narrative behind everyone’s feedback and their confidence through our guest portal.

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If a homeowner is seeking to list their property with Alloggio, what are the advantages you offer?

We’ve got a larger reach for our database in terms of going with a local provider. What I mean by that is that your local provider might be your mum-and-dad business. All they’ll have is people who’ve stayed at the property before. Or people who are booking through the online travel agents. [With] our business, because it is collectively now Australia wide, we’ve got a larger database to better engage people from all different geographic locations to take a holiday within our company, in all of our locations at the same time.

So people who would have normally lived in Brisbane and stayed in the geographical location of Brisbane for a drive holiday can now be advertised a property to stay on the Great Ocean Road and visit some of the Victorian golf courses. Even the NSW South Coast through Mollymook, Jervis Bay or Wollongong… the Hunter Valley golf courses… Newcastle and Nelson Bay… Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast, hinterland properties… right up to Port Douglas.

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What assurances do you provide to property owners who list their property with Alloggio?

That their property will be managed to the best of our potential. They’ll be engaged and communicated to every single level of what’s going on. Some owners want to be engaged with every decision. And some owners want us to actually have a result of every engagement and not have us be in constant communication to them
as well.

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With regard to return on investment, is listing your property worth all the hassle when it comes to selling that property and the tax on capital gains?

It all depends on every individual need. But the short answer is yes, because you’ve got not just the capital gains, you’ve also got the tax offsets, because you have got [the property] generating income for you as well.

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What are the basic requirements that people should consider if they wish to list their property with Alloggio?

There’s local and state legislation to comply with, from compliance of pools and fire regulations, as well as noise regulations and making sure that you’re within the right zoning in your council locations. 

Alloggio Group has Australia and New Zealand’s largest collection of professionally managed holiday homes with more than 3,500 properties. Its portfolio of ‘Golf Getaways’ is a popular feature on its website alloggio.com.au