Thais invest Bt200 million in 'heartfelt' roses for Valentine's Day

BANGKOK: -- Heartfelt greetings, in traditional floral-style and also hi-tech caring at a distance -- expressed with red roses and cellular SMS messages -- will characterise Valentine's

Day in Thailand next week.

The Kasikorn Research Center expects Thais to spend about Bt200 million (US$5 million) to buy roses for their loved ones, and send lots of love via SMS cellphone messages. The researchers say that SMS use is expected to rise by 60 per cent this Valaentine's Day.

The leading think-tank said that red roses and Valentine cards rank at the top as Valentine gifts each year, especially red roses, followed by chocolates, knick-knacks, and gift items.

According to a poll conducted in Bangkok from Feb 1-7, 2006 among 731 young people, KRC forecasts that the Bt200 million spent on roses alone accounts for 20 percent of all spending during the 'festival of

love'.

The demand for roses on Valentine's Day is ten times over the normal rate, according to the polltakers. There are about 7,000 rais (2,800 acres) of rose plantations across the country.

Areas where roses are grown in the kingdom include the provinces of Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Tak, Nakhon Pathom, Samut Sakhon, Ratchaburi, and Kanchanaburi.

Having suitable weather, Tak's Pobpra district has become a leading rose-growing area, with more than 4,000 rai of land used for planting the sweet-smelling roses.

Valentine's Day is a big income-earner for florist shops, flower growers, and motorcycle taxi riders who make many 'special' deliveries.

Moreover, communication by phones, mobile phone and the Internet has become a cheaper and easier option to express affection.

KRC expects that about 35-40 million short messages (SMS), an increase of 60 per cent compared to the same period last year will be sent via mobile phones during the Valentine season.

The number of the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) sent by mobile phone users will be doubled to one to two million messages.

As the number of Internet users in Thailand has increased to 7.4 million people, the Internet will also play an important role during the Valentine's period.

--TNA 2006-02-10

Send flowers to someone in Thailand:

http://flowers.thaivisa.com

A lovely thing to do....and isn`t it wonderful to see a big smile from your loved one.

Flower power is at it`s height on the 14th.

200 milliom baht, at 5bt a throw thats a lot of roses. I do it to though!

I heard that there may be a shortage of red roses this year, due to a certain party buying so many for distribution to poor people at Thaksin-Aid meetings, only for them to give them all back on TV-news, to their saviour.

Hope that doesn't put the price up, on the 14th !

Panic Over.

The som-tam lady says, not to worry, as all those roses passed to DL while the TV-cameras are rolling, are then passed back to an aide, who re-distributes them to the paid/fed-masses once again, for re-use. Sort of like re-cycling them.

This surely cannot be true ? Thailand's richest politican must surely be able to afford to buy fresh roses, each time, to pass out to his supporters, and assist in reducing rural-poverty amongst rose-growers.

Thais invest Bt200 million in 'heartfelt' roses for Valentine's Day

So what's the average rate of return on that investment?