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| North Korean travelers spend time at Munsu Water Park, a state-run entertainment facility east of Pyongyang, North Korea, May 16. Yonhap |
By Lee Hae-rin
North Korea is promoting one-day tours to Pyongyang to its own people as the reclusive regime mulls whether to reopen its borders to tourists following a three-year closure due to the coronavirus pandemic, a North Korean expert said, Sunday.
Choson Sinbo, a newspaper run by pro-Pyongyang residents in Japan, reported May 16 that "Pyongyang tour is gaining popularity from all groups of (North Korean) people," especially on Sundays and holidays.
The tour of Pyongyang covers several key landmarks within the North Korean capital, such as Mount Ryongak, the Tomb of King Tongmyong, the Pyongyang Ostrich Farm and the Rungra People's Pleasure Ground.
"We're seeing an increasing number of applicants to the Pyongyang tour program, which is advertised through newspapers, broadcasts, publications and mobile phones," an official of the North's state-run travel agency, Korea International Travel Company (KITC), was quoted saying.
Tourism to North Korea ground to a halt in January 2020 when the country shut its borders to the rest of the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a Chinese travel agency, North Korea is reportedly set to reopen its borders to tourists from mid-June, but the unpredictable nature of the North suggests that its borders will not open in earnest until thre regime begins actively accepting visitors.
"North Korea is caught in a dilemma between continuing the pandemic lockdown and transitioning to a post-pandemic phase," Cho Han-bum, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told The Korea Times, Sunday, explaining that while the authoritarian regime cannot afford another breakdown in its healthcare system, it is desperately in need of inbound tourism revenues.
He added that only a select few from North Korea's elite class have the freedom to travel in Pyongyang, which will not significantly contribute to reviving the country's pandemic-hit economy.
"North Korea seems to be getting ready to revive its pandemic-hit tourism industry once it reopens its borders to foreign travelers," Cho said.
North Korean tourism authorities reported that a record-high 200,000 foreign travelers visited the reclusive country in 2018, but provided no information on the revenue generated from those visitors. In 2019, at least 350,000 Chinese tourists visited the country, generating around $175 million in revenues, according to NK News reports.
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