Thai hotel and restaurant company Minor International expects first quarter profit to drop by about 40 percent due to the political instability in the kingdom, its chairman said on Sunday.
"Our profit, I expect will see something like a 40 percent drop in the first quarter and we expect to see the second quarter again drop because of the political problems that we have seen," William Heinecke, chairman and chief executive of Minor Group of Companies told Reuters on the sidelines of a hotel conference in Dubai.
Heinecke said he expected recovery to begin in the fourth quarter where the firm would see "comparable growth." "I expect excellent growth in Q4 assuming there are no airport closures," he said. Heinecke said revenue per available room - the industry measure - had fallen as a result of occupancies dropping with Thai averages down by about 35 percent this year in the first quarter compared to last year.
The group has five hotels under construction in the Middle East, but a project in Dubai in partnership with Dubai's state-owned Nakheel was on hold. "In Dubai, we have one project still on hold, it's not up to us, but our partner Nakheel ... they are slowing down a few of their projects and we are caught up in one of them," he said.