Name: North Korea opens up beach resort in bid to boost tourism | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-08-27T14:40:50.000Z
Duration: 3 min 40 s
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North Korea, a country largely closed off to the rest of the world, has welcomed its first tourists at a new holiday resort in an exclusive area on the east coast.

The Wonsan Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone opened on the 1st of July and is where the country's leader Kim Jong-un spent much of his youth.

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BBC News Russian reporter Yaroslava Kirikina managed to speak to one of those tourists who visited the highly restricted site.

She's been telling us what they've been Russian tourists who have first visited it are really excited.

They seem to have enjoyed the holiday despite all numerous restrictions they have experienced and some issues with the tourist self.

The lady I spoke to was in the first group and it happens that it coincided with a visit to the resort by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and their arrival to Wonsan Kalma was delayed by a day.

But then they got there and they were really impressed with, as they described, flawless beach and kind of a host trying to accommodate almost every whim they had.

Why is North Korea opening this resort when it is so restrictive on who it allows in?

According to experts in North Korean affairs, Andrei Lankov, I've spoken to, the thing is that they desperately want some money, some actually valued currency like dollars, euros, even rubles.

And obviously they used to be quite popular among Chinese tourists before the Now there's just a fraction of Russian tourists who are now coming to North Korea and there are roughly 300 to 500 bookings per month.

They still cannot replenish, obviously, the previous tourist floor.

So North Korea desperately needs some cash and the tour itself to Wonsan Kalma is paid partly in dollars.

Is it surprising given, as you say, how desperately the country needs money and resources, the quality of the offering there and also things like food?

How are they managing to offer high quality accommodation, food, all of those things that go into making a world class resort?

Yeah, there are various speculations of where the reason to build this resort come from, because North Korea used to have several resorts, including Rason,

which is quite popular among, I think it was rather popular among British tourists because they went there some of them this winter.

But now they want to lure more Chinese, primarily after Chinese tourists in the first place, as Andrei Lankov believes.

But due to some rough relations with China at the moment, only Russians are permitted.

It's kind of by allowing them, North Korea is trying to show the world that we have a powerful ally and so on.

But again, there are speculations that either there was kind of an Asian resort they wanted to kind of reproduce or Benidorm, which I believe is quite popular among British tourists.