North Korea opening a tourist site on its east coast next week that's key to its tourism hopes

SEOUL: North Korea next week will open a signature tourist site on its east coast that it called a prelude to a new era in its tourism industry, though there is no word on when the country will fully reopen its borders 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, play sports and other 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. He 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 zone will begin service for domestic tourists next Tuesday, KCNA said. But it didn't say when it will start receiving foreign tourists.

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 hasn't fully lifted the travel curbs, including a ban on foreign tourists, that were imposed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starting from February 2024, North Korea has been accepting Russian tourists amid the booming military and other partnerships between the two countries, but Chinese group tours, which made up more than 90 percent of visitors before the pandemic, remain stalled.

In February this year, a small group of international tourists visited the country for the first time in five years, but tourist agencies said in March that their tours to North Korea were paused.