Hawai'i-based Outrigger Enterprises Group is reaching out across the Pacific Ocean again, this time to Thailand, with the announcement that it will manage a new luxury 400-room hotel in a mixed-use resort being built on the island of Phuket.

Outrigger President and CEO David Carey said the family firm is looking ahead to growth in tourism from Asia as well as to Asian destinations with an expected outpouring of travel from China and India.

The new resort, on Mai Khao Beach along the northwest coast of Phuket, will be called the West Sands Resort, Phuket and will feature a hotel, 98 villas and 336 condominiums, along with stand-alone restaurants and "a world-class water park."

It is a project of developer Central & City Developments Ltd., whose principals include Sir Terry Leahy, a former European Business Leader of the year, and Paul Mercer, a well-known developer and president of Central & City Developments.

Carey said Outrigger also has invested in property or management opportunities in Bali, China's Hainan Island and Australia in recent years and is looking for more places to expand.

"We want to be in places where the outbound leisure tourists from Asia want to travel," because that market is expected to grow tremendously in the next decade, he said.

Carey said it makes good business sense to diversify outside of Hawai'i. Recent costs of acquiring new properties have been high and "the development climate for new projects isn't very favorable."

In Hawai'i, it's more likely that small and measured growth of the hotel industry will continue because larger new projects will face more questions, take longer and cost more. "Tourism has reached its maturity point here," he said.

He said the long-range target would be for the company to have management and investment properties of close to 50 percent outside of the state.

"I just got back from Vietnam," he said. "It's a little less developed as a country, but I think long term there are going to be resort opportunities in that country as well."

Carey said work is already under way on the West Sands project, with the first 140 villa and condominium units set for completion by fall 2008. The West Sands Outrigger Resort hotel facility is part of phase two of the project and is scheduled to open by the end of 2009.

Phuket is one of Asia's most popular beach destinations.

"West Sands is Outrigger's first venture into Thailand, but it certainly won't be our only venture," Carey said. "We're looking forward to gaining a significant presence within Asia over the next few years."

Artist's rendering of Outrigger's new resort in Phuket, Thailand.