Daily Talk Forum

Prince a draw at flower show

People rushed to buy tickets for the Royal Flora Ratchaphruek 2006 exposition on November 24 after hearing about the planned visit of Bhutanese Crown Prince Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck on the day.

Agriculture Department director-general Adisak Srisappakij yesterday said there had been a number of advance bookings for the date, which is a Friday. The numbers picked up rapidly once people learned of Prince Jigme's plans to visit the floral exposition in Chiang Mai on that day. About 30,000 tickets are on offer for each day.

The 26-year-old prince has been popular in Thailand since he attended celebrations in June for the 60th anniversary of His Majesty the King's accession to the throne.

Prince Jigme is scheduled to visit the garden of Bhutan exhibit, which occupies 500 square metres of the international garden at the floral show, Adisak said.

He said there were about 1.2 million advance bookings altogether , with November 18 and 25 and December 1, 3, 4, 8 to 11, 16 and 31 all fully booked. The show is expected to draw more than 2 million visitors.

The Nation

A tourist tries to take the best shot of Tulip flowers during her visit to the Dutch Garden in the Ratchaphruek Expo in Chiang Mai on Thursday

Mixed feelings as curtain set to fall on flora expo

The future of the Royal Flora Expo site is still undecided, even though only three days remain before the curtain falls on this three-month-long international event.

It could turn into another giant public park or botanical garden or remain as a flora exhibit, officials said recently.

"The most likely option is turning it into a horticulture study centre for the public and keeping it as another tourist destination in Chiang Mai at the same time," the expo's public-relations officer Preecha Sananvatananont said.

The bigger question is who will take care of this huge site, which requires close and costly management.

"I have heard about setting up a foundation to oversee the site, something like a Royal Flora Expo Foundation," said Junnapong Sara-nak, a senior local tourism official.

"The Agriculture Ministry has the idea of setting up the new organisation to oversee it, but it might take several months to finalise the idea and introduce it legally," Preecha said.

Only two things are confirmed so far. First, the rumour that the expo will be extended until the end of the year is not true as it will definitely close officially on Wednesday.

Second, plants at the site will be watered for two more months by a company paid out of the expo's budget.

The final decision about what to do with the site rests with the Agriculture Ministry, Preecha said.

Apart from its future, today's top issue is what Thailand actually got from putting on this gigantic, Bt3-billion international event.

Quantitatively, the turnout was staggering.

"The visitor figure is over 3.5 million, way over our initial estimate of two million," Preecha said.

It is four times higher than the visitor figure for Chiang Mai during November and January of the previous year, Junnapong said.

Financially, he estimates that the expo over its 92 days injected more than Bt20 billion into the economy of Chiang Mai and nearby provinces, Bt2 billion more than his initial forecast.

Before the expo kicked off, Kasikorn Research Centre's Kanchana Choonhasirirak projected that it would draw three million visitors spending some Bt23 billion.

This estimated figure was 130 per cent higher than the normal visitor figure for the area, she said.

However, qualitatively, the success of the expo is still unclear and hard to gauge.

The expo had three objectives: celebrating His Majesty the King's reign, educating the public and international community about the biodiversity of Thai tropical flora, and promoting local Lanna culture. The expo also expects to act as the finale of the celebration of His Majesty's 60 years on the throne and the launch of celebrations for his 80th birthday this year.

The reaction from visitors, via the media and direct interviews, is positive for the first and the third objectives but not the second one. Promotion of Lanna culture was expressed via light-and-sound shows as well as the expo's architecture and design.

"I am very impressed with the King's biography, life and work as presented at the expo, as well as the beauty of the Orchid Pavilion," one visitor said.

"I'm happy with it. So far so good, except the weather during the day is too hot. The toilets are decorated nicely," another said.

But some slightly negative comments were also heard.

"Yes, it's beautiful, but most species are common ones that we can see in normal life. I expected to see a greater variety of unusual species than we got," said Ing, a food-seller in Chiang Mai.

Some even complained about too much "sufficiency economy" on display.

According to the personal observations of Yui, a master's-degree student working as an expo official, the top sights were the Royal Pavilion, Orchid Pavilion, Bhutanese garden (mainly due to Thais' admiration for Bhutan's prince, now king) and tulip garden from the Netherlands.

"The tulip garden attracted Thais due to its beauty and the rare chance to see one in Thailand, but foreigners were attracted more to the orchids," Preecha said.

"The expo's function is to inspire, not to be a classroom. I think we were very successful in exciting people about flora. We wanted them to see the great potential and biodiversity of Thai flora, though we are not sure how long it [the inspiration] will last," Preecha said.

The most popular activity was taking snapshots by mobile phone and digital camera. Few visitors were seen around academic exhibitions or seminars.

"Personally, I think our greatest success was promoting family activities. We saw many parents bring their elders to visit the expo. A loving family strolling through the expo grounds was really heart-warming," Preecha said.

But to evaluate the success of the expo, its objectives must be borne in mind. First it was supposed to be an international expo conveying its message to the global community. In fact, only 250,000 out of the 3.5 million visitors were foreigners.

"The expo didn't bring in substantially more foreigners, considering the figures of prior years. Most of them had already planned to come here and just added the expo to their itinerary. Many were expats in Chiang Mai," Junnapong said.

Most visitors were locals, which explains why areas showcasing Thai culture, Thai houses and Thai plants were mostly empty.

Some food-sellers at the expo said their business had been incredibly bad due to their offerings not being to visitors' tastes.

"We even asked to close our restaurant after two weeks," said Rungnapha Moolmuk, the manager of Tajmahal Restaurant at the expo.

It sells Indian food and can scarcely ever cover expenses, she said.

"We take only Bt16,000 a day, less than the Bt25,000 of our daily costs," she said. Due to her contract, the expo's management refused to let her close.

However, local food and hotel businesses, both big and small, felt as if they had hit the jackpot, said Wilas Panyawong of the Chiang Mai Restaurant Owners' Association.

"All hotels are fully booked. Night places like souvenir shops are teeming with visitors," he said.

"Overall, positive reactions are heard rather than negative," Junnapong said.

"We learned a lot in helping to organise the expo, both in business and content of the expo," Preecha said.

"Many people will miss the event after Wednesday," he said.

Two questions will remain after that night: the fate of the expo site and the alleged corruption during the expo's construction, which involved the joint venture of Ch Karncharng Plc and Nong Nooch Landscape and Garden Ltd, known as CKNNL.

The investigation of that case is still going on, Preecha said.

Kamol Sukin

The Nation

Chiang Mai