North Korea is scheduled to open its largest tourist site, although it still prevents foreigners to a large extent

North Korea will open a coastal tourist site next week that he says will enter into a new era in the tourism industry, although there is no information about the date of reopening the entire country for foreign visitors.

The government media said that the coastal tourist area of ​​Wonsan-Kalma has hotels and other accommodations for about 20 thousand guests who can swim at sea, and engage in sports and entertainment activities and eat in restaurants and cafeteria on the site.

The official Korean Central News Agency reported on Thursday that the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un toured the site and cut the opening ribbon at a luxury party on Tuesday, the official Korean Central News Agency reported on Thursday.

Kim said that its construction will be “one of the greatest successes this year”, and the site called “the first proud step” towards achieving the government’s policy of developing tourism, according to KcNA.

North Korea will open the site to local tourists first

Wonsan-Kalma Beach is the largest tourist site for North Korea. KCNA said North Korea will start serving local tourists next Tuesday. When will North Korea start receiving foreign tourists, but Russian officials later said on Thursday that the first Russian tour to the site would happen in July.

Observers say that the resort most likely requires a great investment from the North Korea’s limited budget, so it will eventually accept Chinese tourists and other foreign tourists as well.

Kim was pressing to make the country a center for tourism as part of the efforts to revive the sick economy, and the Wonsan-Kalma region is one of the most tourism projects that I talked about. KCNA stated that North Korea will confirm plans to build large tourist sites in other parts of the country as well.

But North Korea did not fully ban the foreign tourists that it imposed in early 2020 to protect from the Covid-19 pandemic. Experts say North Korea has been slow to resume its international tourism because of the remaining restrictions of the epidemic, Tensions with the United States and South Korea In recent years and fears of the publication of Western tourists, a negative image of its system.

Russian tourists expect soon

The Primorsky region in Russia, which borders North Korea, said the first group of Russian tourists in the resort will leave on July 7. The press service in the region said that during their eight -day journey, Russian tourists will also have an opportunity to visit the main attractions of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, according to the Russian news agency Tass.

Starting in February 2024, North Korea has already accepted Russian tourists to other areas The prosperous army And other partnerships between the two countries, but Chinese collective tours, which make up more than 90 % of visitors before the epidemic, are still suspended.

In February this year, a small group of international tourists visited North Korea for the first time in five years, but tourist agencies said in March that their tours to North Korea had stopped.

The last foreign policy gives Kim relations with Russia, where he was providing forces and traditional weapons Supporting its war against Ukraine In exchange for economic and military assistance. Analysts say North Korea’s relations with China, which has long been its commercial partner and useful aid, had apparently calmed down because China is reluctant to join an anti -West alliance with North Korea and Russia.

KCNA said that the Tuesday party, which is the completion of the resort’s construction, attracted the Russian ambassador to North Korea and its employees at the embassy. But he did not say whether any Chinese diplomats were also invited.

“There seem to be issues that North Korea has not yet resolved in its relations with China. But North Korea may represent a lot of money on tourism and plan to spend more. At a later time, to obtain the value of its money, North Korea cannot help in receiving Chinese tourists.”

Lim School, a professor at the Institute of Far East Studies at the University of Kyungnam in Seoul, said foreign tourism to Wensan-Kalaa will start with the Russians. But he said that the Chinese tours to the region, a kind of civil exchange, will start soon, adding that the bilateral trade between China and North Korea is recovering.

South Korea and American tours will not be possible soon

Lim said that the South Korean and American tours of North Korea will not restart them any time soon, although both the new South Korean President Li Jae Meong and US President Trump have expressed the revival of the dialogue with North Korea.

In January, when Mr. Trump boasted about his relationships with Kim, he said, “I think he has huge apartment capabilities. He got a lot of coastal line,” a possible signal to Wonsan-Kalma.

North Korea has not publicly responded to Mr. Trump’s communication. It has repeatedly rejected Washington and Seoul’s dialogue offers and focused on expanding the nuclear weapons program since high -risk nuclear diplomacy with Mr. Trump collapsed in 2019.