North Korea has opened a vast new beach resort, the Wonsan-Kalma eastern coastal tourist zone, to its citizens, state media reported on Wednesday, even as the country largely maintains its strict ban on foreign tourism.
The mammoth complex, which Pyongyang claims can accommodate nearly 20,000 people, is central to leader Kim Jong Un’s strategy to bolster the nation’s struggling economy through tourism. The resort, touted as North Korea’s largest tourist complex, features facilities for open water swimming, water park slides, and various other aquatic activities.
However, the prospects for the Wonsan-Kalma zone remain uncertain. Observers suggest that with the country unlikely to fully reopen its borders or embrace Western tourists in the near future, its full potential as an international draw may not be realised.
Despite these broader challenges, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the Wonsan-Kalma area commenced service on Tuesday, drawing a significant number of North Koreans who were seen enjoying the new attractions.
“The guests’ hearts were filled with overwhelming emotion as they felt the astonishing new heights of our-style tourism culture blossoming under the era of the Workers’ Party," KCNA said in a typical propaganda-driven dispatch.
Photos released by North Korean state media showed children with tubes and inflatable balls dipping into the sea, while others in colorful swimsuits beamed while sitting beneath red-and-white parasols.
Kim said at the opening ceremony last week the site would be recorded as “one of the greatest successes this year" and called its opening “the proud first step” toward realizing the government’s policy of developing tourism. State media said North Korea has plans to build similar tourist zones around the country.
North Korea, however, hasn’t said whether and when it would fully resume international tourism that is key to their success.
Since 2022, North Korea has been slowly easing the curbs imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic and reopening its borders in phases.
But Chinese group tours, which made up more than 90% of visitors before the pandemic, remain stalled while there are questions about ties between the two socialist neighbors. In February this year, North Korea allowed a small group of international tourists to visit its northeastern border city of Rason, only to stop that tour program in less than a month.
Since February 2024, North Korea has been accepting Russian tourists amid expanding military cooperation between the countries. But Russian government records seen by South Korean experts show a little more than 2,000 Russians, only about 880 of them tourists, visited North Korea last year, a number that is too small to revive North Korea's tourism.
Russia’s Primorsky region, which borders North Korea, said last week that the first group of Russian tourists to the Wonsan-Kalma resort will depart on July 7 for a eight-day trip that includes a visit to Pyongyang.
