Nine Days Songkran Festival This Year?
Nine Days Songkran Festival This Year?
According to BangkokPost, the Thai government is considering nine days for Songkran Festival 2020. The Songkran Festival is the Thai New Year celebration is the popular annual ‘Thai annual water festival’. The usual Songkran holiday is one week and Thai Prime Minister Prayut-o-cha plans to add two more days this year.
Gen Prayut admitted the nine-day holiday for the Thai New Year celebrations is under consideration but he did not give the timeline for the final call.
“The final decision has not been made yet,” he said.
The Songkran holiday are from April 13-15 every year. This year, it starts Monday through Wednesday. When taking into account Saturday and Sunday preceding them, the holiday is five days long.
Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak came up with an idea of extending the Songkran period this year to cover Thursday and Friday as well, making it a nine-day holiday (April 11-19). The long period will encourage more people to travel and spend money to give the tourism industry a boost after a sharp drop of tourist numbers from China, he said.
Gen Prayut said the long holiday would help tourism operators.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1859569/nine-day-songkran-under-consideration
We had our first Songkran festival experience in 2017 with Aroimakmak.com and it was fun and memorable. For those who never experienced the Songkran festival, we highly recommend you do so.
We just got back from Bangkok today and there are lesser crowds in popular tourist attractions but life goes on in the capital city. If you are planning to visit Bangkok, just make sure you wash your hands frequently and wear a mask. There are many shopping malls offering hand sanitizers in various locations. We can tell there are lesser Chinese tourists at this time but please do take care of your hygiene.
Lastly, will there be nine days of Songkran Festival for 2020? We will have to wait and see.
