The Ministry for Tourism and Sports will today urge the government to reconsider their plans to reschedule the Songkran holiday between July 4th and July 9th.
The Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration had previously hinted that a rescheduled traditional Songkran holiday could take place at the beginning of next month if locally-transmitted covid-19 infections remain low.
Songkran had been postponed earlier this year due to the emergency decree and nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus.
However, The Tourism Minister, Pipat Ratchakitprakarn, has said that holding a rescheduled Songkran holiday over consecutive days in July is a bad idea and the holidays should be spread out over the remainder of the year.
The Minister is concerned that large groups of people will gather and travel if the holiday goes ahead at the beginning of July.
He instead suggested that the government promote domestic tourism with the Tyo Pan Suk (Traveling and Sharing Happiness) stimulus package that will provide vouchers and hotel discounts to encourage people to travel between provinces on short trips.
If the Songkran holidays were spread out over the rest of the year, several more long weekends could be created which may encourage people to resume domestic travel.
The Minister will submit his proposal to the government today with an announcement regarding when the Songkran public holidays will be replaced expected over the coming days.
Source: The Nation
