A North Korean travel company is working with a Taiwanese travel agency to attract more local tourists to visit the country.
The travel agency, titled Korean Heritage International Travel Company (朝鮮民族遺產國際旅行社), was in 2015 cofounded by the North Korean National Bureau for Cultural Property Conservation and China’s Jiangyin Huaxi International Travel Service.
It was the first time that the North Korean government worked with foreign investors to establish a tour company.
The company announced yesterday said that it would work with Taiwan’s Chung Hsing Travel Service (創新旅行社) to attract more Taiwanese travelers to North Korea.
For political reasons, tourists in North Korea can only visit tourist attractions approved by Pyongyang, Korean Heritage representative Gu Keyan (顧克燕) said, adding that unsupervised tours are not allowed.
The tour features travel destinations that are exclusively offered to the company’s customers, she said, adding that those destinations have been opened to tourists for the first time.
North Korea is developing its economy following the summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last month, Gu said.
Since May, the number of Chinese tourists visiting North Korea has grown from about 100 to 1,000 per day, she added.
China remains the main source of tourists to North Korea, followed by Russia, Europe and North America, Gu said, adding that fewer than 1,000 Taiwanese visit North Korea each year.
The tour price was set by the North Korean State General Bureau of Tourist Guidance, Chung Hsing chairman Ringo Lee (李奇嶽) said, adding that a six-day tour would cost between NT$40,000 and NT$50,000.
Taiwan does not have direct flights to Pyongyang and tourists must transfer in China, but the agency hopes to charter direct flights to Pyongyang in the future or to allow business travelers to enter North Korea on private jets, he said.
The North Korean agency would come to the Taipei International Travel Fair in November to promote the tours as well, Lee added.
Travelers would visit the Migok Cooperative Farm, where they can converse with farmers who are assigned by the government to speak with foreigners, he said.
They would also visit Sariwon City, where they can visit Sariwon Folklore Street and recreated ancient buildings, and the Pothonggang Department Store in Pyongyang, he said.
Hsin Show Travel Service Co representative Chien Shih-chiang (簡士強) said he has been organizing tours to North Korea for more than a decade.
Tourists must heed several restrictions to avoid getting in trouble with North Korean authorities, including avoiding any criticism of North Korean leaders and the regime.
Tourists are barred from taking photos that would hurt the image of North Korea, ezfly.com international tour department manager Ren Shih-ting (任詩婷) said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching