With signature designs and consistent concepts of thoughtful resource utility, natural style, simplicity and no-brand branding, Muji has won the hearts of consumers around the world while also delighting designers interested in strong concepts.

As part of the celebrations marking Central’s 70 years in business, “What is Muji?” and “The Core of Muji Designs” deliver the thoughts and ideas behind the designs and probe further into the brand’s philosophy of products manufacturing.

Satoru Matsuzaki, president and representative director of Ryohin Keikaku, and designer Naoto Fukasawa made the trip to Bangkok to introduce the several limited edition items that will be sold in the exhibition.

Yuwadee Chirathivat, chief executive officer of Central Group said: “It has been 10 years since we brought Muji to Thailand and the feedback from Thai customers has been amazing. After the success on our first branch at Central Chidlom, we expanded fast, and today have 14 branches in Bangkok and across major cities in Thailand, to accommodate the demand of Muji’s quality products. We are delighted to be hosting this exhibition to celebrate our 70^th anniversary and to inspire new generations of designers.”

The products in the exhibition are designed by Fukasawa and include Right Angle Socks – designed with a 90-degree angle at the sole imitating life-size feet to be a perfect fit and stay tight around the ankles, Mattress with Legs, the frame-free mattress with a strong wooden base for support that serves as both bed or a sofa, and the award-winning Wall Mounted CD Player in a space-saving compact size.

Among the limited editions on sale are Fukasawa’s biography (50 copies), the Aluminium Hard Carry Bag in 34-litre and 60-litre sizes (20 pieces), the Solar Watch (30 pieces) and the Park Watch (20).

The Muji Flagship Store at Zen CentralWorld is also celebrating the brand by offering exclusive services including the “Muji Yourself”  decorating station, an interior consultation  service by design experts and “Doi Tung – ‘Shokoku Ryohin”, which brings together quality local products from each province.

“What is Muji” continues through October 1.

Camper was founded in 1975 in Mallorca, Spain as a family-run business dedicated to creating original footwear concepts. Today the company sells around 4 million pairs of shoes annually, has more than 400 stores, and is available in 40 countries.

Camper’s heritage stems back almost 140 years when the Fluxa family began making handcrafted shoes using the high quality materials and latest manufacturing processes and machinery. Its approach to footwear design is to create unisex concepts that blur the boundaries between sporty and smart. Hybrid models now feature prominently across the collection and combine familiar features with fresh elements to create new styles infused with the new spirit of evolution.

The exhibition displays the brand’s first shoe, the Camaleon, which was inspired by the footwear of local farmworkers. The unisex style was a sustainable model, made of surplus offcuts of leather, worn out tyres, and strips of canvas. “Twins” was created in 1988, when Camper decided to challenge the idea that shoes must be identical. Reception for this playful concept was overwhelming and has resulted in collaborations with several of Spain’s best-known artists. Pelotas, one of Camper’s most influential and recognisable icons, became hugely popular in the mid-nineties. Inspired by the pioneers of sport, each Pelotas model is infused with a different sporting passion but always features the characteristic 87 balls on the outsole. The concept has been reinvented many times, from the classic retro leather upper to the technical materials of more futuristic designs. Pelotas has sold over 11 million pairs to date.

The Wabi shoe gets its name from stems from the verb “Wabiru” which means to ask for forgiveness. Created by Camper in 2000, this concept emphasizes the contradiction between rural and urban, inside and out. Wabi represents production innovation by reducing the production process down to just four steps and using minimal components.

Also on display are old posters of interesting Camper’s Ad campaign such as the one that belongs to the T37 campaign (A/W 1993-1994) and was designed by the graphic designer, sculptor and illustrator Pere Torrent.

Synology’s DS418j is a four-bay NAS server with which you can easily create your private cloud storage.

It’s like having a computer to which you can attach up to four internal hard disks – either 2.5 or 3.5inch – ending up with as many as 40 extra terabytes of storage. (That’s if you use four 10TB hard drives, of course.)

The server will also help you manage, protect and share your data conveniently, but there’s much more to it.

Among other features, the Synology NAS can stream video content to a smart TV and music to WiFi players. It can become your centralised backup storage for any and all home computers.

A Realtek RTD1293 dualcore 64bit processor running at 1.4GHz provides the power and 1GB of DDR4 RAM provides the operating memory.

The four drive bays are ready for a 3.5-inch SATA hard drive, a 2.5-inch SATA HDD and a 2.5-inch SSD (solid state drive).

And all of this is fairly compact. The DS418j measures 184x168x230mm, so it sits comfortably on your desk or beside your home router. It only weighs 2.21 kilograms.

Performancewise, it’s pretty amazing, reading encrypted data at better than 112MB/s and encrypted-writing 87 MB/s. Eco-friendly, it consumes a mere 21.22 watts while in use and 8.97 in HDD hibernation.

It’s really easy to set up. I simply undid the four screws by hand at the back to remove the cover. There you see the four plastic drive racks, ready for hard drives to be mounted using a screwdriver and the provided screws. Then you just push the racks back in place and reattach the cover.

Now you need to install DiskStation Manager 6.1 software, for which you need a LAN cable. Hook it up, turn the server on, and you see a network drive displayed on your Windows Explorer.

Click that for the prompt to download and install DiskStation Manager.

Be warned that you must use a blank drive during installation, because the software will reformat your drive and erase all existing data.

After installation, another prompt appears to register for an account with Synology via email. You need that to get a server name with QuickConnect service. (I chose “PaisalDrive”.)

With the server name and QuickConnect service, you can access your content on the DS418j from any Web browser. Just type http://quick¬connect.to/PaisalDrive.

During installation you’ll see another prompt to create a username and password for accessing content on the drives inside the DS418j, including remotely.

Now you’ve got your own private cloud following you around everywhere. No more hassles setting up port-forwarding rules, DDNs or other complicated network settings.

The DiskStation Manager-enabled functions of the DS418j can be expanded with various utilities available for download.

You can, for example, easily share the storage space with family, friends or colleagues, creating a user-account for each person. They can access and share anything that’s not designated as private and kept in a personal folder.

The DSM browser-based user interface allows you to easily organise and share everything in File Station mode. Files are moved and uploaded with a simple drag-and-drop.

In File Station, you can create file links and file requests to share large files in storage. File Station also allows for full content search in case you forget a particular file’s name. In Document Viewer you can look at files without having to download and open them in Microsoft Office or iWork.

Best of all, File Station can connect to your public cloud accounts, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, to check on files or move them over to your NAS.

Download Station allows you to pull files off the Internet through several different protocols – BT, FTP, HTTP, NZB, Thunder, FlashGet, QQDL and eMule. It can also search for torrents directly, so you can download large files without having to keep your desktop or notebook computer running.

For a home user like me, the fun of the DS418j is Video Station on the Synology DSM. Video Station is a powerful app for storing and organising movies, TV shows, home video and RV recordings. And all of this can be streamed to your computer, phone, tablet or TV set.

Then there’s Audio Station for building a personal music centre and streaming your favourite tunes from the DS418j with your computer, phone, DLNA, AirPlay device or Apple Watch.

Photo Station lets you share pictures with everyone as well keeping them all in one central location.

Once the DSM 6.1 is installed, you see folders for storing video, photos and audio files for these stations to stream.

Then you use Synology mobile apps to access the content on your DS418j. There are apps for iOS, Android and Windows phones – DS video, DS audio, DS photo and DS cloud.

DS video supports Apple TV, Android TV, DLNA TVs, Chromecast, Samsung TVs and the Roku player. Use this to watch videos on the NAS or stream them to your TV set. DS photo also supports Apple TV and Android TV.

I found I could quickly and easily transfer files from my notebook computer to the DS418j using File Station. DS video and DS photos streamed content from the DS418j via Apple TV without a problem and the video played smoothly and the photos were displayed instantly.

The DS418j comes with two USB 3.0 ports and the Synology DSM 6.1 has USB Copy 2.0 app that allows you to control which folders and where the files are transferred.

Surveillance Station lets the DS418j be used as storage for your security camera recordings. It’s compatible with more than 5,200 different IP cameras.

You can watch live feeds, play back recordings, receive instant alarms and manage camera settings.

Synology DS418j has a suggested retail price of Bt10,920.

KEY SPECS

– CPU: Realtek RTD1293 64bit dualcore 1.4GHz

– Memory: 1GB DDR4

– Drive bays: Four compatible with 3.5-inch, 2.5-inch drives with 40TB maximum capacity

– External ports: One LAN (1GbE) port, two USB 3.0 ports

– File system: Internal drive – EXT4, external drives – EXT4, EXT3, FAT, NTFS, HFS+, exFAT

– Supported RAI type: Synology Hybrid RAID, Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10

– File-sharing capacity: Maximum local user accounts 1,024

– System fans: Two, each 80x80mm

– Dimensions: 184x168x230mm

– Weight without hard drives: 2.21kg

You have a phone and you love taking pictures of yourself and your gang. You need the ZenFone 4 Selfie from Asus.

It’s not only got dual selfie cameras, it’s also got a selfie app. With this combination, you’re guaranteed to get great 20-megapixel shots of The One and Only as well as enviable wide-angle “wefie” shots of you among your many admirers.

You’ll be famous even if you’re not famous.

The dual-camera system combines a standard view for 20-megapixel shots and an 8MP wide-angle camera with a 120-degree field of view.

On the front camera’s screen, you see a human-type icon at the bottom, above the shutter. If it’s a single character, the focus belongs to you and you alone (20MP at 31mm-equivalent focal length).

Tap it to turn the single character into a mob of three characters and you’re ready to share the limelight (12mm-equivalent focal length in a 35mm film camera).

The optics are quite good considering that you’re now seeing 200-percent more posing space, which is ample room for a large wedge of friends plus neighbouring scenery.

The Softlight LED flash delivers plenty of fill light, almost like pro studio conditions, so everyone’s skin will look soft and shiny. You’ll be so popular!

Portrait mode blurs the background so that the central subject stands out more. Again, the result seems almost professional.

Beauty mode performs pro-quality image retouching and enhancement. It will soften the complexion, lighten the skin, remove blemishes, enlarge the eyes and define the cheeks. All of this is done automatically in this mode, but manual fine-tuning is also possible.

The SelfieMaster app adds more fun to the process. If you haven’t been “enhanced” enough already, this is where you go full-tilt glamorous.

There are 10 levels of beautification to choose from. Wrinkles, acne and the like don’t stand a chance, and it can be used in video and live streaming as well. Smart photo editing will also let you create collages and slideshows to share with friends.

The 16MP rear camera has phase detection autofocus and, thanks to the 26mm-equivalent focal length, shots of scenery can be quite dramatic.

Pro mode enables full control of shooting parameters, including white balance, exposure, focus and ISO. You can set the shutter speed anywhere from 1/16,000 of a second to 32 seconds, with the long exposures opening up terrific possibilities for images of light trails and the night sky, normally the stuff of DSLR cameras.

The ZenFone 4 Selfie is a beauty with its metallic finish of concentric circles that shimmer as the device is turned. Up front is an elegantly curved 2.5D glass display. The phone comes in Sunlight Gold, Rose Pink, Deepsea Black and Mint Green.

There are two nanoSIM card slots and a microSD slot that will take memory cards of up to 2TB. So even when both SIM slots are in use, you can still boost the storage capacity.

The phone’s power comes from a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octacore processor running at 1.4GHz. An Adreno 505 GPU handles graphic tasks. You’ve got 4GB of working memory (RAM) and 64GB of internal storage.

The CPU isn’t as fast as the best that Qualcomm makes, but the phone performs fine and isn’t slow by any means.

A fingerprint sensor integrated in the home button lets you unlock the phone in a mere three-tenths of a second and will recognise the fingerprint anywhere within 360 degrees. You can scan up to five fingers.

Fast Internet connection is possible, as I found testing the phone with TrueMove H’s 4G LTE network. Backing up photos to the cloud and downloading apps are done very quickly. The Ookla Speedtest app measured download speed at 60.1Mbps and uploads at 30.27Mbps.

The ZenFone 4 Selfie can play 24bit/192kHz High-Resolution Audio files. I put on my Sony MDR1ABT HiRes Audio headphones and was fully impressed with the music quality.

The Asus ZenFone 4 Selfie has a suggested retail price of Bt8,990.

KEY SPECS

– Network: LTE Cat 4, HSPA+, GSM

– Operating system: Android 7.1

– CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 1.4GHz octacore

– Memory: 4GB

– Storage: 64GB, expandable with microSD up to 2TB

– Display: 5.5inch IPS with 720×1,280 pixels

– Rear camera: 16MP with 26mm-equivalent focal length lens

– Main front camera: 20MP with f/2.0, 31mm lens

– Second front camera: 8MP with 120-degree wide-angle 12mm-equivalent focal length 6p lens

– Wireless connectivity: 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi direct

– Navigation: GPS, AGPS, GLO, BDS

– SIM cards: Dual nano

– Sensors: Fingerprint, accelerator, ecompass, gyroscope, proximity, ambient light

– Battery: 3,000mAh

– Dimensions: 155.66×76.2×7.85mm

– Weight: 144 grams

The festival will be in the mall’s Event Hall.

There’ll also be fun and activities and interesting discussions, including a talk on “Sufficient Living” by Jon Jandai, who leads the life he’s advocating (September 21 at 2pm).

Autthapol “Tee the Voice” Chaisiri will be singing royal compositions  (September 21 at 1pm and 6pm). There’s a workshop on painting chrysanthemums in watercolours (daily from 11am to 8pm).

And you can watch chefs demonstrating how to use healthy avocado in all sorts of dishes (September 21 at 10pm and 5pm).

Visitors can sample avocado-flavoured ice cream and buy the fruit fresh or processed, along with other produce from the Royal Projects, including macadamia nuts and coffee, plus handicrafts from Doi Tung.

Avocado ice cream is as healthy as can be, but other temptations will be Avocado and Sweet Corn Salad with Shrimp in a special sauce, Avocado Spicy Salad with Tasmanian salmon in a tangy tamarind sauce.

Avocado Spring Rolls and Grilled Chicken mix various culinary notions – a European salad, flavours of the Thai Northeast, and Vietnam’s delicate spring roll topped with mayonnaise-namtok sauce and sprinkled with popped rice.

Avocado with Gruyere Cheese on Crispy Toast has a dusting of cheddar powder on top and the baked result is rich and aromatic.

Having four classical ballet productions by two award-winning Russian companies kick off Bangkok’s 19th International Festival of Dance and Music and celebrate the 120th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations is an understandable strategy. After all, even before the festival’s organiser, International Cultural Promotions (ICP) started Southeast Asia’s most expensive international performing arts festival in the late 1990s, they were already leading the way in bringing world-renowned Russian ballet companies like the Bolshoi to the City of Angels.

On Monday night, the Ekaterinburg Ballet returned to the festival stage with “Katya and the Prince of Siam”. The ballet, now two years old, is based on the romantic relationship between Prince Chakrabongse Bhuvanath, King Chulalongkorn and Queen Sri Bajarindra’s fourth child, and Russian nurse Ekaterina “Katya” Desnitskaya whom he met and married in St Petersburg.

It was a fitting diplomatic choice, especially as the ballet finishes at the point where she was welcomed into the royal household rather than with their divorce some years later. It was also a reminder of why Thai nationals, unlike nationals of other countries, are not required to apply for a Russian visa, and vice versa.

In the title roles, respectively Nadezha Ivanova and Kirill Popov excelled in both their movement and characterisation. The audience could feel the true love, which transcended distance and many other obstacles. The pair was well supported throughout the two-act 100-minute performance by the energy of the company’s corps de ballet. But while composer Pavel Ovsyannikov’s music had a minimal flavour of classical Thai music, Vasiliy Medvedev’s choreography and Dmitriy Cherbadji’s set and costume designs were major setbacks to the piece.

Whenever Medvedev attempted to fuse classical Thai dance with classical western ballet, the result was such an Asian hodgepodge that a sense of “Orientalia” – the ever-exotic and unknown Orient – instead of Thai delicateness, filled the stage. The audience was reminded of Vaslav Nijinsky in “La danse Siamoise” and Jerome Robbins’s choreography for “The King and I” musical, both of which predated this age of information technology that so ably supports any artistic and cultural research. And with the close relationship that exists between the two countries, one has to wonder how this choreography could have been different had there been artistic contribution from Medvedev’s Thai counterparts. Two names immediately come to mind – Naraphong Charassri and Pichet Klunchun – and any Thai could have warned Medvedev that we do not wai our king and queen the same way we do others.

Likewise, more collaboration between the two nations’ artists would have changed Cherbadji’s mind about putting demon images in the Siamese court – the Russian designer probably hasn’t noticed that we moved them from the arrival lounge to the departure lounge of Suvarnabhumi Airport. Throughout history, Thai arts have been influenced by the cultures of neighbouring countries – as well as the West during the era in which the ballet was set – but they have also developed certain characteristics that are uniquely Thai. Had Cherbadji conducted indepth study and research and consulted Thai experts, his design would not have looked quite so pan-Asian.

The audience’s disappointment was wiped away two evenings later when the same company staged “Cinderella”, or another version of “The Prince and I” tale, with refreshingly new choreography and production design. Surprises were aplenty. In the opening scene, the audience saw Cinderella’s two sisters doing exercises in brightly coloured tights and wearing headphones in a modern condominium unit and later the prince made his first appearance in the TV news on a giant LED screen. We witnessed a fine blend of classical ballet and ballroom dance in the prince’s birthday ball and the use of Google Earth to find the woman whose foot would fit the shoe, notwithstanding the longer-than-necessary scene with the fairy and the slight clumsiness of the set and props movement.

Eclipsing even the chemistry of their counterparts in “Katya and the Prince of Siam”, Ekaterina Sapogova’s Cinderella was subtle and credible when she was forced to do all the housework and chic and elegant when she charmed the prince with eyeglasses – Ilia Borodulin who was always very likeable – with her dance at the ball.

A reminder to any producers that the Thai audience loves watching surprising adaptations of familiar tales, this “Cinderella” is definitely a highlight of this year’s festival.

That same afternoon, one of the festival’s sponsors, Bangkok Bank, hosted a charity performance of “Cinderella”, with different dancers in the principal roles as seen in the photos here, for underprivileged children and students from many institutions who otherwise would never be able to afford tickets, despite the festival’s current 30-percent student group discount.

I’m not the only audience member who wishes other sponsors would consider doing the same, not just as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities but also to support the festival’s audience development.

That said, there are also other ways to make student tickets really affordable. Hong Kong Arts Festival (HKAF), now in its 45th edition, offers 50-percent discount on all ticket prices of all shows, with sponsors and donors supporting the price differences. Plus, it has a year-round paid membership programme, also substantially supported by sponsors and donors, for high school and university students which prepares them, with lectures, workshops and other activities, for the main festival when they can also attend dress rehearsals of many works.

Opera, contemporary dance productions and jazz concerts are not in this year’s lineup, which is dominated by classical ballet, and we can assume that we won’t get to watch any imported western operas here this year, given that the festival is the sole importer. In addition, many of the productions and companies from previous festivals are on the programme. And this makes the 2017 edition look like a retrospective before the big 20th anniversary next year when we can expect more surprises.

And in comparison to festivals of the same scale elsewhere, our relatively young festival welcomes more repeat companies and productions than all of them, much like Bangkok itself, which is always welcoming repeat visitors.

On the other hand, if you missed them last time they were here, it’s a good opportunity to watch — or if you prefer, rewatch — “Flying Superkids” from Denmark, “Peter Marvey’s Magic Show” from Switzerland and “West Side Story” from the US, all of which are now touring in the region.

Otherwise, “Torero” and “Carmen” by Antonio Andrade Flamenco Company look promising as does the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra whose programme appears less predictable than that of the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra.

Personally I am looking forward to the contemporary ballet “Beauty and the Beast” by Malandain Ballet Biarritz from France, which promises choreography that looks as exciting as its costume and mask designs. The festival’s closing act is also a must-see, as Stuttgart Ballet makes a much-anticipated return to Thailand with John Cranko’s classical ballet “Taming of the Shrew” on October 18 and 19.

And that will eventually fortify the label of this festival, in the city where there are scores of ballet schools and zero professional ballet companies.

The 19th Bangkok’s International Festival of Dance and Music is made possible through the support of Crown Property Bureau, Ministry of Culture, Bangkok Bank, Bangkok Dusit Medical Services, B Grimm Group, BMW, Dusit Thani Bangkok, Indorama Ventures, Nation Group, PTT Group, Singha Corporation, Tourism Authority of Thailand, Thai Airways International and Thai Union.

BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW

– “Bangkok’s 19th International Festival of Dance and Music” continues to October 19 at Thailand Cultural Centre’s Main Hall (10-minute walk from MRT: Thailand Cultural Centre).

– The celebration of the diplomatic relations between Thailand and Russia continues tonight 7.30pm with Bashkir State Ballet’s “Spartacus” and at 2.30pm on Sunday, “Le Corsaire.”

– Tickets for all performances are now available at ThaiTicketMajor outlets and online.

– Visit http://www.BangkokFestivals.com and on Facebook “Bangkok’s International Festival of Dance and Music” for more details.

These include some 1.5 million refugee children missing out on primary school, the report found, while two million refugee adolescents are not in secondary school.

“Of the 17.2 million refugees under UNHCR’s mandate, half are children,” said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “The education of these young people is crucial to the peaceful and sustainable development of the countries that have welcomed them, and to their homes when they are able to return. Yet compared to other children and adolescents around the world, the gap in opportunity for refugees is growing ever wider.”

The report, “Left Behind: Refugee Education in Crisis”, compares UNHCR sources and statistics on refugee education with data from Unesco, the United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation, on school enrolment around the world. Globally, 91 per cent of children attend primary school. For refugees, that figure is far lower at only 61 per cent – and in low-income countries it is less than 50 per cent.

As refugee children get older, the obstacles increase: only 23 per cent of refugee adolescents are enrolled in secondary school, compared to 84 per cent globally. In low-income countries a mere nine per cent of refugees are able to go to secondary school.

For tertiary education the situation is critical. Across the world, enrolment in tertiary education stands at 36 per cent. For refugees, despite big improvements in overall numbers thanks to investment in scholarships and other programmes, the percentage remains stuck at one per cent.

The report calls for education to be considered fundamental to the response to refugee emergencies, and for it to be supported by long-term planning and reliable funding. It urges governments to include refugees in their national education systems as the most effective, equitable and sustainable response, and highlights some of the notable efforts made towards implementing such a policy – even in countries where resources are already stretched.

UNHCR’s report has found that the enrolment of primary-aged refugee children has risen over the past academic year, from 50 per cent to 61 per cent, thanks largely to improved policies and investment in education for Syrian refugees, as well as the arrival of refugee children in Europe, where education is compulsory. During the same time period, access to secondary education remained stagnant, with less than one in four refugee adolescents enrolling in school.

“The progress seen in the enrolment of Syrian refugee children shows clearly the potential to turn around this crisis in education for refugee children,” said Grandi. “But the abysmal level of school enrolment for refugee children living in low-income regions clearly points to a need to invest in these often forgotten host countries.”

Sixty two percent of respondents from Thailand even admitted that they have gone to a destination they have no interest in, just because someone else was willing to plan it for them.

The survey of more than 5,000 respondents aged 25-65 years old across five countries including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia was commissioned last July to better understand attitudes towards vacation planning – whether Thais have the know-how or a genuine fear of planning, to who takes charge and how much time is invested in making plans.

“We were shocked to find that there’s a growing trend of Thais who are short changing themselves when it comes to getting the most from their annual leave, given that they work so hard to earn it,” commented Chris Thomas, regional marketing director of Beringer Vineyards.

“In response to the findings, Beringer has launched a campaign on the world’s largest travel site TripAdvisor, to inspire a holiday planning revolution. We want people to see that making vacation planning a social occasion is the way forward. A little bit of planning can have a huge impact on the kind of holiday you experience and it’s well within everyone’s reach. We believe that vacation planning is always better when shared with others over a glass of wine,” added Thomas.

Survey findings also revealed that 31 per cent of Thais actually fear vacation planning, 22 per cent hate it and do their best to avoid it and 35 per cent likened vacation planning to being at work. However, 96 per cent agreed that sharing the responsibility of vacation planning makes it more likely to happen, and more enjoyable.

While well over half of Thais (66 per cent) find themselves rolling over annual leave to the next financial year, or losing it completely, a staggering 86 per cent acknowledged that they could have enjoyed more trips if only they were better at planning.

The main reasons Thais are not maximising annual leave include challenging work schedules/responsibilities (76 per cent) and conflicting schedules of travel buddies (40 per cent). Moreover, 14 per cent shared that they find vacation planning so overwhelming that they shut down completely.

Thais typically only start vacation planning just eight weeks or less before their departure date. They only spend an average of eight hours to research a destination, prepare an itinerary and secure the best deals. They admit that this last minute approach does add to their stress levels unnecessarily. Only six per cent of Thais would commit to more than seven months ahead to plan a trip.

The top three holiday regrets Thais would most want to change if they could turn back time on that holiday include better destination research (73 per cent), taking advantage of lower cost travel by booking early (64 per cent), and encouraging social planning with friends to make planning more enjoyable (39 per cent).