North Korea inaugurates resort by the sea with party, but without foreign tourists

A new resort by the seaside opened for business this month in North Korea with great disclosure-but without foreign visitors that the country’s leader Kim Jong-un expected to come with tourism money to compensate for punitive financial sanctions.

In late July, state media reported North Korean families crowding a 4-kilometer scenic beach on the central east coast, which began accepting tourists two days earlier. “The joy and optimism of tourists overflowed everywhere, and the song of happiness resounded in the windows of enlightened accommodation,” said the Corea Central Agency, North Officer.

The resort, called Wonsan Kalma and with a capacity of 20,000 people, is the most ambitious among seaside resorts or spa and ski mountains that Kim has been built to attract foreign tourists. Kim, his wife and daughter participated in a ceremony at the end of June marking the completion of the installation.

Kim began to promote tourism after the United Nations imposed severe sanctions in 2017 that banned all major exports in the country, including coal and textiles. Sanctions are designed to deprive North Korea of the means of gaining foreign currency to finance their nuclear and missile programs. But they did not affect tourism, which Kim saw as a new source of very necessary foreign currency.

Kim’s goals were more evident in the transformation of Kalma beach. North Korea used to fill it with artillery pieces during military exercises. In recent years, however, Kim aligned the beach with newly built water parks and multiple resort hotels. South Korean media dubbed Kalma beach from “North Korea Waikiki”.

But Kim’s tourist plans did not come out as he expected. The pandemic led North Korea to close its borders and dried the flow of tourists from China, which reached 300,000 per year. Kim’s new tourist complexes remained half or empty during this period. The country reopened its borders in 2023.

In recent months, visits from hundreds of Russian tourists have reflected the warming of relations between Pyongyang and Moscow, after North Korea provides very necessary personnel and weapons to help Russia in its war against Ukraine.

But China has not yet allowed its citizens to travel to North Korea. It is broadly believed that Beijing is afraid that North Korea approaches too much to Russia, which could reduce its influence on a recalcitating Pyongyang.

South Korea – the only other country bordering North Korea – stopped sending tourists to the north in 2008, when it closed a joint intercorean tourist complex.

On Thursday, North Korea’s state media released photos showing North Korean families taking a shower, skiing in the water, going down water slides and throwing volleyball in the sand, as well as children playing in the water with buoys. But no foreign tourists were seen.

Russian tourists were expected to visit the beach during the summer, South Korean authorities said. But their number would be small, they said, due to limited transport options in North Korea (Kalma is about 210 km from Pyongyang) and the bad condition of the roads between the Russian border and Kalma beach.