BOI likes to see 40 million baht, AFAIK.

As the proprietor of a bungalow resort on Koh Samui for the last 7 years I can only offer this advice.

Start a Thai registered company with you & your wife as directors.

Lease an existing (preferably delapidated) resort, making sure the most important thing is right - location. I agree with a previous post, in that the right place will jump out at you when you see it.

Do not go down the road of key money & a monthly rent, do a deal & pay the whole lot up front trying to secure the longest lease possible and have a renew option in the contract at a fixed price.

Build the resort up as you want it, even if it takes a few years, knowing that your lease is long enough to easily give you the return you want.

Buy a small piece of land in the locallity, big enough for a family house, in one of your childrens' names that you know will always be your family's no matter what happens with the business.

Above all get a reputable lawyer who is not a local (say from Bangkok) to handle everything for you.

This is what I did & I'm still here & reasonably successful.

PS for cynthialee, I worked in the construction industry before I set up my business here & had absoloutely no experience in the hospitality business at all , and as I said, I am reasonably successful and as yet have not been robbed blind.