New Year countdown events prepared nationwide

BANGKOK, December 29 (TNA) - As previous years, New Year countdown events are now actively prepared throughout Thailand. In the northern Phetchabun Province, hotel operators are preparing their countdown activities and increasing their campsites to welcome tourists whose number should make a new high this year. Nearly 8,000 hotel rooms in Phetchabun have been fully booked until the end of February 2012. In the northeastern Si Sa Ket Province, staffs of the Khao Phra Wihan National Park have prepared a campsite for New Year visitors, for the first time over the past couple of years, as the situation along the Thai-Cambodian border has returned to normal. International tourists can camp at the national park from December 30, 2011 onward. In Mukdahan Province, also in the Northeast, a New Year countdown event, at which national firework champion will also present beautiful fireworks during the transitional period to the 2012 New Year, was set to be held at the 2nd Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge and preparations have already been complete. Meanwhile, Phadermdet Mangkang, acting customs chief of Thailand's northeastern Nong Khai Province, said that the value of Thai-Lao border trade through the 1st Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge in Nong Khai has exceeded 43.7 billion baht this year, rising from about 38.1 billion baht last year, with Thai exports to neighbouring Laos totaling almost 41 billion baht and the number of people crossing the border being on the rise to over 5.3 million this year, up from about 4.7 million last year. (TNA)