Songkran: Thailand’s complex relationship with tourism - Asia Specific podcast, BBC World Service

Songkran is one of the biggest holidays in Thailand, but celebrations this year look a bit different. Because of the Iran war, fuel prices are much higher and that means. people aren't travelling home to see their families for the new year. But also it has an impact on tourists who usually fly in for this huge party. Happy Songkran baby. So are tourists still coming back and. is Thailand's heavy reliance on tourism sustainable?

I'm Mariko Oi in Singapore and this is Asia Specific from the BBC World Service. Twice a week we bring you Asia Pacific stories. unpacked by those who know them best. And today I have Panisa Aemocha, a reporter for the BBC World Service in Thailand, as well as Kiatanantha Lounkaew, an Economics Professor. at the Thammasat University, who is usually based in Bangkok. but joins me now in Singapore. Welcome both to Asia Specific. Thank you and say hi to you and Singaporeans.

So let's start with you. Let's let's start with painting the picture of what exactly Songkran is. When did it start? What does it mean? Just paint the picture for us. Okay, so in order for me to paint the pictures, let me first say Happy Songkran or Songkran to you both. and also to audiences who are watching us. But okay. The word Songkran itself actually stems from Sanskrit language. It's actually meaning the movement of the sun.

to the new astrological position, and to be more precise, is from the Pisces to the Aries. What does that mean? I mean, that's up to interpretation. But Songkran is actually a. traditions that falls between 13th. to 15th of April of every year. It is actually the hottest month and hottest season of Thailand. And in the past, these traditions coincide with the post-harvest period. of Thais back then and a lot of Thai agriculture, we still are.

And those older generation, they try to come up. with some activity to relax after they did their hard work. with the crop and with the harvest. So they do some activity and it is hot, right? It was hot. Is it still hot. So the water come in handy in the past. We put scented water. This is some of the example of the scented water. I use it in the morning at my house so you can see it's a bit empty. So you put some scented water in like a bowl of of water,

and then you pour it to the elder. So it's on ground. You pour this water to the elder, you give them blessing. The family would go to temples in the past. We still do nowadays. But then when time went on, decades went on from pouring water. It became with Super Soaker it would become splashing. It's become like a street and water fight. that a lot of foreigners know about. Something that is quite unique to Southeast Asians.

So professor, as I said, this is a cultural tradition, but attracting quite a lot of tourists as well. I want to talk about that as well. But domestically as well. People travel within Thailand as well, don't they? So how much does this festival contribute to the economy generally, and how has it kind of affected? How has it been affected because of the ongoing war in Iran? Usually Songkran festival is where people go back to their hometowns. and they bring back incomes and presents and all the resources.

So it's quite a redistribution back to where they were. You see a lot of traffic jams, people stuck on road. for maybe a day or maybe a day and a half just to get home. And millions of people are moving back. In economic terms, you're bringing back resources. It's important for for the regional economy. We see a lot of economic activity picking up after that a month or two. So that's quite significant. But for the oil price hike now, which put a lot of petrol costs. It's hard for them to travel.

And Panisa, you talked about foreigners coming to this festival. ButwWhat's in it for them if it's a traditional, you know, Buddhist festival? I mean, people do love Thailand. And I could say that. I mean, of course, everybody experiences is different. and the price in Thailand has been increased. So a lot of foreigners actually complain that is not like in the past. But if we put that on layers, the foundation is Thailand is a destination.

for many people to come for travelling to spend their holiday. And you put on top of that a festival. I already mentioned in the first question that the tradition itself. of the festival itself has developed over the years, and it's become like a stage for water fight. But you gotta understand that this is a big festival and the government. and the private sector also pour in money idea to attract more tourists. So you have this element. Thailand is hot and.

if you get an excuse to take off your shirt but not too sexy, okay, that's against the law. Not too sexy. Okay, bikini is prohibited, but you can wear a little bit of tank top and you walk in the street and. there's water and the foam party and we're talking about DJ stage. We have ADM, I mean, coincidentally, we have Coachella in the US. But if you don't want to go to Coachella, you can come to Thailand, to Bangkok, to Chiang Mai, even to Hat Yai. might be the destination for Singaporean or Malaysian.

So this is a very fun activity. But professor, I guess airfare has gone up because of this war as well. Are there any indications, are there any worries. among the Thai government officials that. maybe tourism numbers might tourist numbers might actually fall this year? It will fall after the Songkran festival because the impact takes time to realise. in full scale the cost of living at their home countries, the petrol price. Because many of them purchase tickets before the festival, before the war.

But after this, the price increase will affect the tourism sector drastically. I would say especially because we rely on international tourists. for the main source of income for our economy. Yeah, I want to get to that later in this episode. But Panisa, you were saying how this festival has evolved to, I guess, meet the demand of those tourists. How do locals feel about so many tourists coming to this festival? And if you can just talk us through some of. maybe negative consequences of Songkran.

I think for Thai people, we are aware. and we are expecting foreigners to flock in, the more the merrier at this level is a very typical Thai mannerism. Whatever activity you have, we got to have food and we're talking about just normal people. Doesn't have to be those who already own a restaurant. They see the opportunity and they want to like open a food stall. And might I add that when I was younger, a lot younger, I used to open a food store to sell rice and and like omelettes as well.

For like ten baht and 20 baht. Back in the day when I was in high school, it was super fun. But yes, I think in general we know that foreigners will come and we love it. because professor already mentions that Thailand rely heavily on tourism. and this is the big day, the big event that people are actually planning for. So it's is, is normal. But when you talk about consequences or maybe negative. that that disrupt normal people, day of living, Songkran itself. kind of disrupt the normal daily life for those who still working.

Like for example, if you come to Thailand, if you don't take the BTS. or the Skytrain, majority of the time you would take a motorbike. And if you have to go to work, you will need to tell people. who are waiting on the pedestrian who gonna shoot you with the super soaker. like I did it first time. I was like, oh please, I'm working. And they could tell from your outfit, but please, I'm working. And that's that's kind of a funny things. And the BTS train is packed and it's wet,

but I think in general, the season itself, the festival itself, people can bet the negative consequences. But if we talk about overtourism coming in, we can go deeper later. So, professor, you mentioned how the Thai economy relies heavily on tourism. Can you just give us an idea of, you know, how many percentage in comparison to manufacturing, agriculture? So let's say one third of our economy is driven by manufacturing sector. About 15% is from tourism and about 10% from agriculture.

So these three sectors combined occupy over half of our economy. And in terms of tourism being such a huge part of the economy, was it a a deliberate policy by the Thai government to boost tourism. to, I guess, rely on tourism? Of course, we are relying on it even more after Covid. because Tourism sector is the only sector where you get money right away. Once the tourists step into the country, you export something. It takes six months to get the real cash back into the country.

Investment takes maybe 18 months. But tourism sector, once the tourists step in, money coming in with them. So it's the quickest way to boost the economy. And it has this this redistributive power. They go to smaller provinces, they go to food stores. I used to run a store as a manager of the small store, the food store, that's that kind of money going into people's hands quickly. And that's why we prefer tourists for the. for the short term boost of our economy.

But over tourism is not the only problem that happened from tourist sector. It's a cost of living. When we have tourists coming in, the cost of living in that area is higher and it puts costs higher. It reduces the competitiveness of that area. In particular, can you just help us define what the term overtourism is. because we hear that phrase quite a lot, but it doesn't just mean a lot of tourists, too many tourists, is it? Normally when we look at overtourism, we look at the infrastructure capacity,

whether it can handle that much of people for a long time. without, you know, reducing the quality of the service. Secondly, it's about social impact to the community. Does it change the way people live forever or in the short run, it's okay. But if it changes permanently, that's not good. Ecosystem capacity, how the environment takes the effects. and whether it can recover from it. So these three angles are the key to defining overtourism.

If they fall apart then we definitely have a problem. Overtourism. Panisa, you mentioned overtourism as well, but you know, the professor talked about the cost of living crisis and so on as well. How do locals feel about this issue of overtourism? Because there are certain sectors of the society which face probably. more negative consequences of overtourism than others. So tourism can also translate. in a lot of foreigners coming in and live in the area as well. I'll bring you down to Phuket, over from 2004 to 2005 to 2025.

With these spans of like 20 years, we're talking about the rent price that increased at least 10% annually, and the price is now served for foreigners. So for dollars, so for Chinese yuan. So for all the currencies, that's not Thai currency or Thai baht. And what this means is people who live there for generations. cannot afford to live there anymore. And to put it in perspective, the high end transactions.

or property over 60% in Phuket alone is foreigner. You can see that this is unaffordable. We have land developers who like levels. of billionaire who built this wedding destination, and. then we have people who cannot afford to live in their own house anymore. Professor, you talked about how when the infrastructure can't cope. with the number of foreigners tourists coming in, that's one of the definitions of overtourism.

If relying a lot on tourism to boost the economy was the government's policy, are they also doing something to make. sure that infrastructure, you know, appropriate infrastructure, is in place? The budgetary process takes at least two years. before the allocation will take place and a year to build it. So it's like three year lags behind. The number of tourists, it's hard to cope with the increased demand. It can come, you know, overnight or in a few months. And then some players become popular and people flock in.

But money for building infrastructure takes at least three years to build up. That's the bottleneck we're facing right now. Professor talked about Covid pandemic and how that affected tourism numbers, not just in Thailand, but around the around the world. But now we have a number of Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, which are also becoming quite popular with foreign tourists. So if overtourism is such a big issue, is that actually a good thing.

that maybe some of the tourists are going to other countries, or. does the Thai government still want to keep attracting more and more tourists? I mean, that's $1 billion or billion type questions, right? And professor's already mentioned that we need quick money because. our economy hasn't actually rebounded to the levels of pre-pandemic. And if you're talking number the year before pandemics, the Thailand have foreign tourists, almost 40 million. And ever since then we never reached that number.

The government really pushed to that number. But for some reasons we never reached to that number. And we have actually the reason and the short answer is the Chinese tourists. Before pandemic, we have we have hosted a lot of Chinese tourists, and now they still travels, even though there's a lot. of purchasing power strain in China. It sells with the economy, but the Chinese tourists are still travelling, but they don't come to Thailand anymore. They go to elsewhere. They go to Vietnam.

The Dong is cheaper and there's a lot more infrastructure in Vietnam. The Vietnamese government also pushing for tourism as well. I mean, they go to they go to Japan, they go to elsewhere. But if you're looking into Thailand, it sells. So when a lot of Chinese tourists come. Right. Let me paint a picture. If they come to Bangkok, one. of the things that become like a very popular trend for quite some time. is they love to dress up in Thai school uniform. Right? And then taking pictures, or they come here.

and they take Thai traditional dress and then they taking pictures. But if you come here every year, like how often. do you want to do the same activity? So a lot of tourism in Thailand also like trying to figure out. how to make Thailand feel like a destination. Do you think, though? I mean, the fact that the Thai economy relies, as you said, 15% of the economy relies on tourism. Is it is it sustainable to keep relying on tourism if they can achieve.

what you just mentioned in terms of making it somewhere. that a lot of foreigners, tourists want to keep going back to. Thailand is too big as a country to rely on just one sector. Tourism might be a good a good starting point for a certain area, but you can't expect it to run the whole economy because we have 77 provinces. and some of them are just like similar when you don't when you drive. past one province to another, you don't see the difference. So it cannot be the main engine for the long run growth of the economy.

It can supplement. That's why it's just 15%. Manufacturing sector, that's about 35%. Agricultural sector could be expanded to be like 15 or 20%. And then you can medical tourism, other high tech technology. I think we should be looking at those sectors as well. Tourism can be a supplementary economy that helps to smooth out the economy. during the fluctuation time, or when we need cash. Quick cash to boost the economy. How? How should the Thai government achieve that?

Because I'm assuming out of all those provinces, some places are extremely popular and facing overtourism issues, whereas other provinces may have almost under tourism issues. So how do you balance that? Okay, so we have to accept the fact. that we cannot make every province a tourist destination. So focus on what they are doing, what they're good at. They are like, for example, in Thailand, they are now creative cities designated by Unesco. Capitalise on that. And then other other provinces. You look at other alternative measures like improving agricultural.

sector productivity or manufacturing investment, or maybe service sector. There are many other things that you can do to expand. and achieve a more balanced economy. During Covid, we have learned the lesson, learn it the hard way that relying on the tourist sector is painful. We never thought that there will be tourists coming into Thailand, so we built everything on the train because when you look at that trend. 15 years back, it's positive growth, 15 to 20% growth straight,

and we were too optimistic. I'm going to let you go back to playing with your water guns. Thank you so much for joining me and Professor Kiatanantha. Yes. My pleasure. You've been watching Asia Specific from the BBC World Service. with me, Mariko in Singapore. If you have any questions or thoughts on what we covered in this episode. or any other stories from the region, please leave us a comment below.

You can also get in touch with us on Email Asia Pacific at bbc.co.uk. and click like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. See you next time.