North Koreans swam and rode water slides at a newly opened mammoth beach resort which can accommodate nearly 20,000 people, state media reported on Wednesday.
Despite restrictions which largely ban foreign tourists from entering the country, leader Kim Jong Un has been seeking to boost tourism to his country, in a bid to improve the struggling economy.
However, plans for the Wonsan-Kalma resort — which is the biggest such complex in North Korea — remain unclear, as the country is unlikely to fully reopen its borders and embrace Western tourists anytime soon, observers say.
Prospective Chinese and Russian tourists
Since 2022, North Korea has been slowly easing the curbs imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic and reopening its borders in phases.
However, the country hasn’t said whether, and when, it would fully resume international tourism.
In February this year, North Korea allowed a small group of Western tourists to visit the north-eastern border city of Rason, only to halt the tour programme less than a month later.
Chinese group tours, which made up more than 90% of visitors before the pandemic have also remain stalled, amid uncertainty around ties between the two neighbours, as Beijing remains silent on the deepening military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.
Amid its expanding military cooperation with Russia, North Korean has been accepting tourists from the country since February 2024.
Russia's Primorsky region, which borders North Korea, said last week that the first group of Russian tourists headed to the Wonsan-Kalma resort would depart on Monday for an eight-day trip which also includes a visit to Pyongyang.
Despite this, Russian government records seen by South Korean experts show that out of 2,000 Russians who visited North Korea last year, only about 880 were tourists, a number considered too small to revive the tourism sector.
