Thai authorities are aiming to make Songkran a global brand among the world’s top 10 festivals and are expanding the celebration from three days to a month.
Thailand plans to turn next year’s Songkran Thai New Year celebrations into a month-long global water festival to boost “soft power” and attract foreign tourists to the kingdom.
Phua Thai Party leader and president of the National Soft Power Strategy Committee Paetongtharn Chinawat announced that the committee has agreed to promote Songkran celebrations as one of the world’s best festivals, the Bangkok Post reported.
“Let’s make the Songkran festival an event for which everyone should fly to Thailand. Let’s make Thailand home to one of the world’s top 10 festivals,” Paetongtharn said.
“Starting next year, the Songkran Festival will not be the same. We will be splashing and dousing ourselves with water not just for three days but for a whole month, and celebrations will be held all over the country,” the committee head announced.
The committee expects the expanded Songkran festival to generate 35 billion baht for the Thai economy. Based on this, the committee has prepared a draft budget of 5.1 billion baht to be spent on mobilising the main industries the committee will focus on, including:
Festival activities (1 billion baht)
Culinary (1 billion baht)
Tourism (711 million baht)
Entertainment (545 million baht)
Sports (500 million baht)
Thai art (380 million baht)
Creative design (310 million baht)
Music (144 million baht)
Books (69 million baht)
To promote Thailand’s soft power, the government should pass a soft power law and establish the Creative Content Agency of Thailand, comprising 12 sub-committees dealing with different soft power sectors, said committee vice-president Dr Surapong Suebwongli, adding that each sub-committee would have representatives from relevant sectors.
The committee will review the requested budget by December 14 before submitting a final report to the cabinet in January, Dr Surapong said.
The festival sub-committee plans to organise more than 10,000 nationwide festive events during 2024, the highlight of which will be the extended Songkran in April, said Chadathip Chutrakul, president of the festival sub-committee.
The Songkran Water Festival will be held at Rachadamnoen Avenue and other venues in Bangkok’s Old Town with performances by international stars and local artists, said Chadathip, who is also executive director of Siam Piwat, operator of Siam Paragon, Siam Centre and Siam Discovery shopping centres.
In addition to Bangkok, each province in Thailand will host water festival celebrations throughout April, promoting unique provincial traditions.
“The festivities will provide jobs for locals at the village level and allow organisers to train locals to plan events,” Chadathip said, adding that the sub-committee will also create a mobile app promoting Thailand’s ‘soft power’ to foreigners.
The dangers of extending Songkran
However, not everyone shares optimism about extending Songkran celebrations, believing that the holidays are charming in that they end quickly. “Promoting Songkran as Thailand’s ‘soft power’ is understandable, but encouraging Thais and foreign tourists to splash water for the whole month of April is not a good idea,” says Thai PSB columnist Tulsatit Thaptim.
In fact, provinces are ordered to choose different dates for the celebrations so that when Songkran ends in one place, it starts in another. If tourists don’t make it in time for the original Songkran celebration dates, they will still be able to get to the celebration during April.
However, this plan has some potential drawbacks to think about. First and foremost, the idea won’t appeal to supporters of water conservation and businessmen, probably even more so, says Tulsatit.
But perhaps the bigger problem is that the idea could have the opposite effect. There’s a reason why the Olympics and World Cup are held every four years, and tournaments don’t last very long. Sporting events will lose value if they take place too often or last too long.
“And needless to say, Songkran is not the same,” Tulsatit said confidently.
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