North Korea has opened a large-scale coastal resort to attract Russian tourists and has shown signs of resuming Chinese tourism. However, experts predict that these efforts alone will not be sufficient to boost the tourism industry significantly.
This assessment was released on Monday in a report titled “Evaluation and Outlook on Foreign Tourism to North Korea Targeting China and Russia,” published in the June issue of the Korea Development Institute’s (KDI) North Korea Economic Review.
The report emphasized the importance of expanding tourism efforts beyond China and Russia to include Western nations to revitalize North Korea’s foreign tourism sector.
It also predicted that attracting more Russian tourists would be challenging due to travel inconveniences and high costs. The demand for North Korean tourism among Russians living in the nearby Primorsky Krai region is low, and citizens from western areas, such as Moscow, perceive North Korea as too distant to visit.
The Wonsan Kalma Coastal Tourist Area, which North Korea has carefully developed, offers beach activities for only about two months, from July to August. During this period, Russians from western regions often opt for destinations with better infrastructure, such as the Black Sea coast, Turkey, or Egypt, the report noted.
Excessive surveillance and control over tourists also pose significant issues. Visitors to North Korea are subject to strict regulations regarding interactions with locals, and they must obtain permission from their guides to take photos or videos.
The report anticipates that due to these limitations, North Korea will eventually welcome back Chinese tourists. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea attracted between 240,000 and 270,000 Chinese tourists annually. However, without improvements in tourism conditions, the influx of Chinese tourists is likely to remain limited. Reaching the desired annual target of 1 million tourists will be a formidable challenge.
The report suggested that if North Korea could attract a large number of South Korean tourists, as it did in the mid-2000s, it would create a breakthrough for the tourism industry. However, it emphasized that to broaden foreign tourism significantly, North Korea would need to drastically revise its hard-line diplomatic and security policies, which prioritize nuclear power, in order to improve international relations.