North Koreans swam, rode water park slides and enjoyed other water activities at a newly opened mammoth beach resort, state media reported yesterday, as the country largely maintains a ban on the entry of foreign tourists.
The tourism pet project of leader Kim Jong-un is reportedly set to welcome Russian guests later this month.
Dubbed “North Korea’s Waikiki” by South Korean media, the Wonsan Kalma Coastal Tourist Area — a “world-class cultural resort” that Pyongyang said can accommodate nearly 20,000 people — is at the heart of leader Kim’s push to boost tourism as a way to improve his country’s struggling economy.
Photo: Korean Central News Agency / Korea News Service via AFP
However, prospects for the resort, the biggest tourist complex in North Korea, are unclear, as the country is unlikely to fully reopen its borders and embrace Western tourists anytime soon, observers said.
The tourist zone on Tuesday opened to domestic visitors, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, publishing images of tourists in colorful swimsuits enjoying the beach.
“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.
Photo: Korean Central News Agency / Korea News Service via AP
The visitors were “astonished by the grandeur and splendor of the tourist city, where more than 400 ... artistically designed buildings lined the white sandy beach in ideal harmony,” it added.
A group of Russian tourists is set to visit the zone for the first time on Monday next week, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
At the inaugural ceremony last week, Kim said the site would be recorded as “one of the greatest successes this year,” calling its opening “the proud first step” toward realizing the government’s policy of developing tourism.
North Korea would build more large-scale tourist zones “in the shortest time possible,” he added.
Previously released images showed him sitting in a chair — alongside his teenage daughter Kim Ju-ae and wife, Ri Sol-ju — watching a man flying off a water slide at the resort.
North Korea sees tourism as a key source of foreign currency and Pyongyang might have received aid to complete the site from Russia in exchange for joining its war in Ukraine, the South Korean Ministry of Unification said.
Since 2022, North Korea has been slowly easing curbs imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic and reopening its borders in phases, but the country has not said whether or when it would fully resume international tourism.
Chinese group tours, which made up more than 90 percent of visitors before the pandemic, remain stalled while there are questions about ties between the two communist neighbors.
In February, 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 last year, it 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.
FLYBY: The object, appears to be traveling more than 60 kilometers per second, meaning it is not bound by the sun’s orbit, astronomers studying 3I/Atlas said Astronomers on Wednesday confirmed the discovery of an interstellar object racing through the solar system — only the third-ever spotted, although scientists suspect many more might slip past unnoticed. The visitor from the stars, designated 3I/Atlas, is likely the largest yet detected, and has been classified as a comet, or cosmic snowball. “It looks kind of fuzzy,” said Peter Veres, an astronomer with the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, which was responsible for the official confirmation. “It seems that there is some gas around it, and I think one or two telescopes reported a very short tail.” Originally known as A11pl3Z before
US President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday accused Harvard University of violating the civil rights of its Jewish and Israeli students, and threatened to cut off all federal funding if the university does not take urgent action. Harvard has been at the forefront of Trump’s campaign against top US universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and “viewpoint diversity.” Trump and his allies claim that Harvard and other prestigious universities are unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and anti-Semitism. In a letter sent to the president of Harvard, a federal task
‘CONTINUE TO SERVE’: The 90-year-old Dalai Lama said he hoped to be able to continue serving ‘sentient beings and the Buddha Dharma’ for decades to come The Dalai Lama yesterday said he dreamed of living for decades more, as the Buddhist spiritual leader prayed with thousands of exiled Tibetans on the eve of his 90th birthday. Thumping drums and deep horns reverberated from the Indian hilltop temple, as a chanting chorus of red-robed monks and nuns offered long-life prayers for Tenzin Gyatso, who followers believe is the 14th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. Looking in good health, dressed in traditional maroon monk robes and a flowing yellow wrap, he led prayers — days after confirming that the 600-year-old Tibetan Buddhist institution would continue after his death. Many exiled Tibetans
Hundreds of protesters marched through the Mexican capital on Friday denouncing gentrification caused by foreigners, with some vandalizing businesses and shouting “gringos out!” The demonstration in the capital’s central area turned violent when hooded individuals smashed windows, damaged restaurant furniture and looted a clothing store. Mexico City Government Secretary Cesar Cravioto said 15 businesses and public facilities were damaged in what he called “xenophobic expressions” similar to what Mexican migrants have suffered in other countries. “We are a city of open arms... there are always ways to negotiate, to sit at the table,” Cravioto told Milenio television. Neighborhoods like Roma-Condesa
RSS