Thai firms feel squeeze from crisis


January 29, 2014 at 10:18a.m.

Thai firms feel squeeze from crisis

BANGKOK (AP) — Hotel occupancy rates in central Bangkok have plunged. Conventions have been canceled. Business deals have been postponed. Tourist bookings for coming months are way down. The latest spasm in Thailand’s near decade of political upheaval is taking an economic toll as anti-government protesters barricade Bangkok’s major intersections and confrontations between protesters and supporters of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra periodically flare into deadly clashes.