Thailand Songkran Festival celebration opens float parade to light Bangkok.

　　Xinhua News Agency, Bangkok, April 8 (Reporter Wang Jin Yang Zhou) On the evening of the 8 th local time in Thailand, the "Surprise Songkran Festival 2017" float parade was held in the capital Bangkok, thus opening the prelude to the Songkran Festival celebrations in Thailand.

　　The night’s float parade began at Sukunyi Road, and six floats with different themes, such as "Beautiful Blooming Siam", "Goddess of Song Gan" and "Myth of Song Gan", appeared one after another with wonderful song and dance performances. These floats concentrated on displaying the colorful cultures of all parts of Thailand, adding a touch of bright color to the night view of Bangkok.

　　In his opening speech that evening, Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister in charge of tourism Tanasa expressed the hope that this year’s Songkran Festival would enable domestic and foreign tourists to deeply experience Thailand’s New Year culture and understand the cultural differences between different parts of Thailand.

　　It is understood that this year’s celebrations in Bangkok are mainly held in Wuji Park and will last until the 13th. There are four exhibition areas in the park, which show visitors the different customs of celebrating Songkran Festival in different parts of Thailand through Buddhist rites, traditional customs display, food, Thai boxing and beauty pageant. In addition to Bangkok, the Thai Tourism Bureau will also hold celebrations in 13 provinces including Chiang Mai, Sukhothai, Dacheng and Phuket.

　　Songkran Festival, also known as Songkran Festival, is a new year in Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and other countries. In addition to throwing water at each other to show blessings, traditional celebrations also include going to temples to pay homage to Buddha and building sand pagodas.

　　According to Thai media reports, it is estimated that the number of foreign tourists coming to Thailand during the Songkran Festival this year will reach 470,000, a year-on-year increase of 10%, which can generate 8.05 billion baht (about 1.6 billion yuan) for Thailand, a year-on-year increase of 17%. Judging from the air ticket booking at the end of March, the number of tourists from China ranks first.