North Korea will open its largest tourist location, although it still largely stops foreigners

North Korea will open an iconic coastal tourist attraction next week, and it will say it will usher in a new era in its tourism industry, although there is no news about when the country will fully reopen to foreign tourists.

State media said the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist area has hotels and other accommodations that can accommodate nearly 20,000 guests who can swim at sea, engage in sports and entertainment activities, and eat in restaurants and buffet restaurants on site.

South Korea’s official Central News Agency reported Thursday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited the site at a luxurious ceremony on Tuesday and cut the first videotape at the grand ceremony.

King said its construction will be recorded as “one of the biggest successes of the year” and called the location “the first step of pride” to achieve government policy setting for tourism.

North Korea will open the scene to domestic tourists first

Wonsan-Kalma Beach Resort is the largest tourist destination in North Korea. North Korea will start serving domestic tourists next Tuesday, KCNA said. It did not say when North Korea will start hosting foreign tourists, but Russian officials said late Thursday that the location’s first tour will be held in July.

Observers say the resort may require huge investments from a limited investment with a North Korean budget, so it will eventually have to be accepted by China and other foreign tourists to break it.

King has been working to make the country a tourist hub as part of his efforts to restore the sick economy, and the Wonsan-Kalma region is one of the tourism projects he talks most about. The KCNA report said North Korea will confirm plans to establish large tourist attractions in other parts of the country.

However, North Korea has not completely lifted the ban on foreign tourists imposed in early 2020 to prevent the pandemic on the 19th. Experts say North Korea’s slow recovery in international tourism is due to the remaining pandemic path Tensions with the United States and South Korea In recent years, and fears that Western tourists have spread negative images of their systems.

Russian tourists are expected to be soon

The original region of Russia, which borders North Korea, says the first group of Russian tourists will leave on July 7. According to Russian state news agency Tass Tocation Agenta, the region’s news service company said that during the eight-day trip, Russian tourists will also have the opportunity to visit the main attractions of civilians in the North Korean capital.

Since February 2024, North Korea has accepted Russian tourists in other regions A booming army And other partnerships between the two countries, but the Chinese group’s tour of more than 90% of tourists before the pandemic remained stagnant.

In February, a small group of international tourists visited North Korea for the first time in five years, but tourism agencies said in March that their trip to North Korea was suspended.

Kim’s recent foreign policy prioritizes relations with Russia as he has been providing Russia with troops and conventional weapons Support its war against Ukraine As a return on economic and military aid. But China’s ties, which have long been its largest trading partner and aid donor, have apparently cooled down as China is reluctant to oppose anti-Western alliances with North Korea and Russia, analysts said.

The ceremony on Tuesday marked the completion of the resort’s construction, attracting staff from Russia in North Korea and its embassy, ​​KCNA said. But this does not say whether any Chinese diplomats are invited as well.

“North Korea’s relationship with China seems to have not resolved the problem. But North Korea has invested too much money in the tourism industry and plans to spend more money. Then, in order to get the value of the money, North Korea cannot help receive Chinese tourists,” said Lee Sangkeun, an expert in national security strategy, run by intelligence agencies in South Korea, an expert in a think tank.

Lim Eul-Chul, a professor at the Institute of Far East Studies at the Jongnam University in Seoul, also said that foreign tourism at the Wonsan-Kalma site will start with the Russians. But he said China’s travel to the region was a kind of civilian exchange and would also begin soon, adding that bilateral trade between China and North Korea is recovering.

The trip to South Korea and the United States may not happen soon

Lin said South Korea and the U.S. trip to North Korea is unlikely to restart soon, although new liberals, South Korea’s President Lee Young and U.S. President Trump both expressed their desire to have dialogue with North Korea.

When Mr. Trump boasted about his relationship with Kim in January, he said: “I think he has a huge apartment capacity. He has a lot of shorelines,” probably a reference to Wonsan-Kalma.

North Korea has not yet publicly responded to Mr. Trump’s propaganda. Since Kim and Trump collapsed with Trump in 2019, it has repeatedly rejected conversations between Washington and Seoul and focused on expanding its nuclear weapons program.