Cancellations and disruption after North Korea closes borders
Tour operators are facing cancellations and disruption after North Korea closed its borders on Friday due to fears of the Ebola virus.
Regent Travel, which has been arranging holidays to North Korea for 30 years, said it feared a booking for November may have to be cancelled due to the action.
It said that it was urgently arranging a meeting with the Embassy to ‘ascertain whether the borders would be open in time for Christmas and the New Year’.
Andrea Godfrey, general manager of the North Korean specialist, said no passengers were imminently affected, adding that it was quite a low season for tours to the country.
But she added the tour operator was having to consider cancelling a November booking while it also has a tour scheduled for Christmas.
She said: "They did this with SARS in 2003. We wouldn’t expect it to continue beyond the New Year but the key thing for us now is to establish when it is likely to re-open."
Ironically, leisure trips to the isolated communist country are being promoted at World Travel Market for the first time this year.
Founded three years ago, Experience North Korea, which works with travel agencies and tour operators around the world to offer North Korean tours, will be exhibiting at WTM in November to meet travel buyers from across the globe.
Shanghai-based Nathalie Armengol, managing partner of Experience North Korea, said: "We always joke and say that going to North Korea is like going to another planet. So, effectively, it’s the cheapest trip to outer space you can buy."
Armengol said she aims to show WTM delegates how travel to North Korea is safe and "very straightforward" – and can be bought by any individual of any nationality, including Americans.
All of Experience North Korea’s trips begin and end in Beijing, where customers obtain their visas, and then flights to Pyongyang are with Air Koryo or Air China.
Diane
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