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North Korea to open its biggest tourist site next week

Sandy Verma | June 27, 2025 4:24 PM CST

By AP &nbspJune 26, 2025 | 04:44 pm PT

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his daughter Kim Ju Ae watch a person going down a slide during a ceremony to celebrate the completion of the Wonsan Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone, in Wonsan, North Korea, on June 24, 2025. Photo by KCNA via Reuters

North Korea next week will open a signature coastal tourist site that it says will usher in a new era in its tourism industry, though there is no word on when the country will fully reopen to foreign visitors.

The Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist zone has hotels and other accommodations for nearly 20,000 guests who can swim in the sea, engage in sports and recreation activities and eat at restaurants and cafeterias on site, state media said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un toured the site and cut the inaugural tape at a lavish ceremony Tuesday, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday.

Kim said its construction would be recorded as “one of the greatest successes this year” and called the site “the proud first step” toward realizing the government’s policy of developing tourism, according to KCNA.

The Wonsan-Kalma beach resort is North Korea’s biggest tourist site. KCNA said it will begin service for domestic tourists next Tuesday, but the report did not say when it will start receiving foreign tourists.

Observers say the resort likely required a huge investment from North Korea’s limited budget, so it eventually will have to accept Chinese and other foreign tourists to break even.

Kim has been pushing to make the country a tourism hub as part of efforts to revive the ailing economy, and the Wonsan-Kalma zone is one of his most talked-about tourism projects.

KCNA reported North Korea will confirm plans to build large tourist sites in other parts of the country, too.

But North Korea has not fully lifted a ban on foreign tourists that it imposed in early 2020 to guard against the Covid pandemic.