The first sod has been turned on the construction of a five-star, $6 million hotel near the Adelaide Airport, but the only guest will be cats and dogs.

Guide Dogs SA is building a facility to house up to 244 cats, dogs and other “pocket” pets such as guinea pigs.

The so-called Personalised Pet Stay will include luxury suites with personal televisions and live-streaming webcams so owners can check in on their pets while they are on holidays.

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Facilities include a pool, indoor and outdoor enclosures and cat “condos” with private sleeping areas and litter boxes.

It will create 25 full-time equivalent jobs.

Guide Dogs SA CEO officer Kate Thiele said on-site carers would have the same level of training as guide dog instructors.

Owner will be able to view live-streaming webcams to check in on their pets while on holidays. Photo: ABC

“Many people don’t know that they’re tertiary qualified,” she said.

“They do four years’ study to become a guide dog mobility instructor. We’ll take that expertise we have in animal care and take it for the first time in South Australia to the community and train people with our standards of do care.”

According to the Animal Health Alliance, there were more than 25 million pets in Australia in 2013, with the pet care industry estimated to be worth $8 billion annually.

Ms Thiele said the animal hotel would tap into the market.

“Our market research says that pets are now very much part of our families,” Ms Thiele said.

“Years ago your dog was outside in its kennel. Those days are gone. Pets are now inside. Many of them sleep inside.

“We know that pet products are actually blossoming in the market in terms of retails sales.”

The hotel will be named Beau’s, after the first guide dog to be trained in Australia in 1951.

Any profit from the hotel will be directed back into Guide Dogs SA, something Ms Thiele said should be celebrated.

“It’s quite a beautiful story,” she said.

“A guide dog walking someone who can’t see and helping them be independent and mobile just in itself is superbly innovative, and I think our pet hotel continues that history of innovation that we’ve had through many years.”

The hotel will start taking guests in 2017.

– ABC