I went to the beach for the long weekend, room rates are higher than pre c-19, not unexpected, and you’re seeing this being reported by the larger hotel players both domestically and globally. How long can this last? Well until there is new capital coming in to take-over and refurbish the hotels that have gone bankrupt due to lockdowns, it’ll likely continue for another 2-3 years, best example of this has been CENTEL, the share price continues to rock n roll and is higher than it’s level at the end of 2019. Can MINT shake off it’s debt issues and do the same? A quick history lesson of what happened in the past…in 2019 CENTEL’s share price was beaten down due to worries about the re-leasing of the land in hua hin, whereas MINT was riding high on the acquisition of NH Hotels, so it isn’t a pure like-for-like comparison.

As for the market, well not totally unexpected to see this pullback, baht had recovered incredibly quickly to 32, now back to 34/35 (which I think is fairish for now). And look at the PE now for the SET, its trailing at 19x, that ain’t cheap.

Some brokers have been banging on the pre-election rally, past-elections were different compared to this one. Here in amazing Thailand, 1/3 of the senate is still appointed by the military & friends (on paper its less democratic than Myanmar which only appoints 1/4), so the amount of spending and to whom the money goes to, during elections will be different. I am quietly hopeful that the next government in May will be an improvement from this set of donkey kongs that have done an amazing job for themselves. Let’s watch…