A colourful display of dancers in traditional costume at the Thailand Tourism Festival 2019 in central Bangkok today. The parade featured ancient costumes from different historical periods - and even had dancers spinning round on hover-board scooters.

Hosted by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the festival is designed to encourage tourism in the country throughout the year and motivate Thais to discover more about the land of their birth.

Tourism boss Yuthasak Supasorn said: ''This festival has played a long and important role in encouraging domestic tourism since its days at Suan Amporn and now at Lumpini Park.

''We hold it at the beginning of the year so that people can start planning their trips early. This year’s event will, as usual, feature a variety of foods, products and performances from all regions of the country in order to promote, inspire and help motivate everyone to travel. More than 600,000 local and foreign visitors visited last year’s event, which generated Bt390 million of income.''