The North Korean leader Kim Jong un un unit cut the inaugural tape at a new tourist location of the coast during an extravagant ceremony on Tuesday, although the resort is not immediately open to foreign tourists.
Kim toured the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone and called the construction “one of the greatest successes this year” and “the proud first step” to a new era in the tourism sector of the government, according to the official Korean central news agency.
Hotels and other accommodations for nearly 20,000 guests were built on the east coast of the Hermit Kingdom, where visitors could do activities, such as swimming, sports and recreation and dining in restaurants in the resort, the state media said.
The resort, the largest tourist location in Noord -Korea, will open for domestic tourists next Tuesday, Kcna said, but the report did not say when foreign tourists will start receiving.
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The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with his daughter, extremely left, cuts the inaugural tape during a completion ceremony of the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone in North Korea on Tuesday 24 June 2025. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
Experts believe that Noord -Korea has invested heavily in the construction of the resort and will eventually have to accept Chinese and other foreign tourists to earn back costs.
But North Korea is slow to resume its international tourism due to persistent COVID-19 Pandemic curbs, a flare-up of tensions with the US and South Korea in recent years and concerns about Western tourists who spread a negative image of his system.
Kim Jong Un, sitting center, with his wife Ri Sol Ju, rear and daughters tour through the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone in North Korea on Tuesday 24 June 2025. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
Analysts say that the resort will first be open to Russian tourists, as evidenced by his thriving military and other partnerships with Russia, before they finally open to Chinese tours.
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The Russian ambassador in Noord -Korea and his ambassadors appeared during Tuesday’s ceremony, according to KCNA, although the report did not say whether Chinese diplomats were also invited.
South Korean and American tourists will not be so happy, told Lim Eul-Chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul of Kyungnam University, to The Associated Press.
President Donald Trump met Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June 2018 during his first term as president. During the first months of his second term, Trump claimed that the US will have relationships with Noord -Korea. (AP/Evan Vucci)
Lim said that those tours will probably not restart quickly, although both the new liberal South Korean President Lee Jaen Myung and US President Donald Trump have expressed the hope to breathe new life with North Korea.
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Kim has insisted to turn the country into a tourism hub as part of the efforts to breathe new life into the sick economy, where KCNA reports that Noord -Korea will soon confirm plans to build major tourist sites in other parts of the country.
The Associated Press has contributed to this report.
