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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, April 08, 2002

Thailand Starts Celebrations of Traditional Lunar New Year

Thailand has started a nine-day-long celebrations of Songkran, its traditional lunar new year, with a huge parade with performers from all 76 provinces nationwide held in the capital city Sunday night, the state-owned radio reported Monday.


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Thailand has started a nine-day-long celebrations of Songkran, its traditional lunar new year, with a huge parade with performers from all 76 provinces nationwide held in the capital city Sunday night, the state-owned radio reported Monday.

Some 420,000 travellers are expected to traverse the country every day during the celebrations of the Songkran water-splashing festival between April 7 and 15, the country's busiest holiday period.

Transport authorities estimated some 200,000 passengers a day on inter-provincial bus routes while another daily 150,000 are expected to travel by train. Airlines will have 70,000 domestic guests per day.

Minister of the Prime Minister's Office Somsak Thepsutin who oversees the tourism sector, said he expected the capital city to have at least 300,000 holiday-visitors a day during the period, who are expected to inject some 4 billion baht (970 million U.S. dollars) into the economy during the whole nine-day celebrations.

The Songkran celebrations will peak on April 12 to 15, the official holiday period.


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