Valentine's in Thai south dull, orders of flowers decreased over half

SONGKHLA, Feb 13 (TNA) -- Florists in the Thai southern province of Songkhla are seeing less than 50 per cent sales this year from prior years, due to sluggish domestic economy and lower spending power by consumers. The Valentine''s Day atmosphere this year at the southern business city of Songkhla is quite dull, as florists have opted to lower their orders of roses for this year's Day of Love by more than half. Florist, such as the Panuwat Florists, which is situated in the Songkhla Municipality was seen preparing bouquets of roses to only meet orders by customers who have planned to give the bouquets to their loved one tomorrow. However, red and white roses remained to be the most popular flowers for this Valentine's. The flower shop owner, Mr Panuwat said the orders of bouquets have more than decreased by 50 per cent from last year, which he attributed the reason to the slowly improving economy and less spending power by customers. He said orders of bouquets were usually piled up that he barely had time to finish all in time, but this year, although Valentine's Day is already tomorrow, orders are still quite low. He added that he has also ordered less roses to be sold this year from his usual orders of 3,000-4,000 roses from both Chiang Mai province and Kunming City of China's Yunnan Province, down to only 1,000 roses, fearing that he might not be able to sell them all. (TNA)