North Korea to open beach resort
North Korea is set to open up a new beach resort town to tourists.
Wonsan Kalma will initially open to domestic tourists next week.
It was the hometown of North Korea leader Kim Jong Un
According to state media the resort can accommodate up about 20,000 visitors, along a 4km stretch of beachfont, featuring hotels, restaurants, shopping and a water park.
It will start welcoming local tourists but there is is no news on when or if it will be open to foreign visitors.
Inbound tourism is still heavily restricted to mostly Russian and Chinese groups.
“I was hoping this might signal a broader reopening to international tourism, but unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case for now,” said Rowan Beard, the co-founder of Young Pioneer Tours.
North Korea started welcoming Russian tour groups again last year after a long gap since the pandemic.
Earlier this year it started accepting a limited number of foreign tourists from the UK, Europe and Australia.
However, that stopped just a few weeks later and there has been no news since about restarting it.
State media designed Wonsan Kalma as a ‘new era in tourism.’
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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