A small group of foreign tourists visited North Korea in the last week, leaving a group of Russian tourists who went to the north last year and became the first international traveler to enter the country in five years.
The latest trip indicates that North Korea may be ready to resume its international tourism to bring a very essential forex to revive its struggling economy, saying experts say.
Beijing -based travel company Korio Tours said it arranged a five -day visit for 13 international tourists from February 20 to February 24 for North Eastern North Korean border city of Rasan, where the country’s special economic zone is located.
Cocio Tourist General Manager Simon Cockerel said passengers from UK, Canada, Greece, New Zealand, France, Germany, Austria, Australia and Italy were crossed by land from China. He said that in Rasan, he visited factories, shops, schools and statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, who was the father of grandfather and current leader Kim Jong Un.
“Since January 2020, the country has been closed to all international tourists, and we are happy that finally got an inauguration in the Rasan region in the north of North Korea,” said Cockerel.
He said, “Our first tour has been and has gone, and now arranging more tourist trips on both group and private trips,” he said.
After the epidemic began, North Korea quickly banned tourists, excluding diplomats and severely mentioned the border traffic in one of the world’s most draconian Kovid -19 sanctions. But since 2022, North Korea is slowly reducing karbas and reopening its boundaries.
In February 2024, North Korea accepted about 100 Russian tourists, the first foreign nationals to visit the country for visiting places. This surprised several observers who thought that the first post-pandemic tourists would come from China, North Korea’s largest business partner and prominent ally.
The Ministry of Integration, South Korea, citing official Russian data, said that about 880 Russian tourists visited North Korea in 2024. The Chinese group tour in North Korea stays.
This indicates that North Korea and Russia have gone close to one other because North has supplied weapons and soldiers to Russia to support its war against Ukraine. Relations between North Korea and China were cooled as China showed its reluctance to join the US-US alliance with North Korea and Russia, saying experts.
Prior to the epidemic, tourism was an easy, valid source for foreign currency for North Korea, one of the world’s most approved countries due to its nuclear program.
North Korea is expected to open a huge tourist destination on the east coast in June. In January, when President Donald Trump claimed his relationship with Kim Jong Un, he said “I think he has tremendous condo capabilities. He has received a lot of coastline.” This possibility refers to the eastern coast site.
The return of Chinese tourists would be important to make North Korea’s tourism industry attractive as they represented more than 90% of the total international tourists before the epidemic, Lee Sangken said that by South, an expert in the Institute for National Security Strategy, by South A think tank is run. Korea intelligence agency. He said that in the past, 300,000 Chinese tourists visited North Korea annually.
“North Korea is investing heavily at tourist destinations, but not much domestic demand,” Lee said. “We can assess that North Korea now wants to resume international tourism to bring many tourists from abroad.”
North Korea usually imposed restrictions on foreign travelers – such as requirements they run with local guides and ban photography at sensitive places – possibly hurt their efforts to develop tourism. Lee said Rasan, Eastern Coast Sthal and Pyongyang would be the places where North Korea feels that it can easily monitor and control foreign tourists.
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