North Korea has put a sudden ‘pause’ on its Western tourist drive, just weeks after visitors entered the country for the first time in years.
Travel groups offering Britons adventures inside the Hermit Kingdom report that trips to the port city of Rason have been put on hold after the country tentatively reopened its doors to foreign visitors last month.
Young Pioneer Tours, a group that ‘specialises in taking you to places your mother would rather you stay away from’, advised holidaymakers to refrain from booking flights ‘until we have more information’ on Wednesday.
‘We have been advised by our partners in the DPRK that tours to Rason are currently paused,’ they wrote in a post on Facebook. ‘We are in the process of clarifying how this will impact your upcoming trips.’
North Korea had sought to welcome foreign guests with new attractions in recent weeks, after shutting itself off at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Restrictions were eased in 2023, before Russian visitors were invited to visit last year.
The country is also on the verge of unveiling its Costa Blanca-inspired holiday resort in Wonsan Kalma, on the west coast, promising to create a ‘coastal wonderland’ for tourists and set to open as soon as this summer.
The decision to ‘pause’ visits to the country comes as a shock, with travel agencies reporting that their Korean partners ‘have no more information themselves’ at this stage.
Unnamed operators told the BBC that trips to the experimental special economic zone of Rason had been ‘more restricted’ since reopening, with fewer opportunities to engage with the locals and internet access not available.
Young Pioneer Tours organises tours for foreign visitors to explore North Korea
Visitors were shown a ‘controversial’ performance at the Children’s Palace which saw children singing and dancing in front of a exploding missile display
A group of 13 Western tourists embarked on a trip to North Korea for the first time since the hermit kingdom after the nation sealed its borders at the onset of the Covid19 pandemic in early 2020
Britons on recent tours said they were shocked at some of the differences in culture they experienced in North Korea.
Ben Weston, a tour leader from Suffolk, told the BBC that the latest trip was ‘like being on a school trip’, and that they could not leave their hotel without a guide.
Mike O’Kennedy, a YouTuber, said that, ‘a couple of times I even had to let them know when I wanted to use the bathroom’.
But tour groups today indicated that their latest guests were still able to conclude a successful visit to Rason, despite the sudden reversal.
Justin Martell, marketing director at Young Pioneers tour group, told MailOnline that a group travelled home from North Korea yesterday.
The group shared pictures from the Russian Friendship Pavilion, near the Russian border, and at a Taekwondo demonstration.
‘We also made a stop at a local bookstore, where we had the chance to browse and pick up some anti-imperialist propaganda, offering a fascinating glimpse into the region’s ideological landscape,’ a post on their public Facebook page read.
Mr Martell told MailOnline that a number of factors had led the company to believe that health concerns might be the reason for the abrupt halt on travel.
‘The DPRK has a tendency to close the borders due to epidemics even if they are not nearby. They recently closed the border for six months because of an Ebola outbreak in Africa, and kept Westerners out for five years because of Covid-19,’ he said.
‘During the tours we saw posters aimed at the population warning against the spread of Covid and monkeypox [mpox] and how to protect against these.
‘The health ministry also published an article on March 4 about WHO’s concerns over monkeypox so they are clearly taking it seriously.’
Tour guests experienced a Taekwondo demonstration during a recent visit to the country
‘When our group left yesterday everyone at customs was wearing masks and they all had temperature checks. On arrival that didn’t seem to be mandatory.
‘It all seems to be to do with health concerns rather than negative backlash against Western tourism.’
He added that the tours had gone ‘really well’.
‘Our clients were very happy. The Koreans were a bit rusty – or were worried they would be rusty – because they haven’t had western visitors in years.
‘But they were great and everything went well.’
He said the visitors were not required to have any vaccinations, though noted that Chinese and Russian businessmen visiting Rason – the country’s main business district – appeared to present health certificates at the border.
On background checks, he said that the DPRK authorities asked for ‘everyone’s full name and occupation’ for the permitting process, saying this was not dissimilar to visa applications in other countries.
‘How much they look into people’s backgrounds I can’t say or confirm, but we took vloggers and content creators with us and they didn’t seem to have a problem with them.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wears a face mask on state television during a meeting acknowledging the country’s first case of COVID-19 Thursday, May 12, 2022
Koryo Tours, which has taken at least 13 Western visitors to the country since the end of February, also reported on March 5 that Rason had been ‘temporarily closed’.
The operators said in a blog post that they had ‘no further information on this right now’ but said they were ‘in contact with both our groups there and with our Korean partners but they have no more information themselves’.
‘The local travel company in Rason says this is temporary, but they have no other information beyond that, so there is right now no way to say how temporary this may be,’ they said in the statement.
A representative told MailOnline today that there was still no news on what may have caused the border to close, and noted the ‘spurious’ nature of rumours surrounding the move.
The group had only recently confirmed that trips had finally resumed on February 20.
‘Right now, travel is only possible to Rason, but we’re hopeful that more areas will reopen soon,’ a statement on the website read.
A sample itinerary for a week-long trip mentioned a visit to the seaside city of Wonsan, as well as a tour of the capital, Pyongyang, and hikes of the sacred mountain region of Mt. Myohyang.
In an effort to woo visitors accustomed to sandy Spanish beaches and grandiose resort complexes, North Korea has also long been pursuing a ‘Benidorm-style’ zone on its west coast since at least 2015.
The resort ostensibly took its direction from a subsequent ‘research trip’ to Spain in 2017, which was said to have left visiting officials ‘amazed’.
North Korea has since been building luxury hotels and recreational facilities in Wonsan Kalma, envisioning one of the largest single-operator beach resorts in the world.
Plans previously showed that the resort would be able to accommodate up to 100,000 visitors at a time.
A group of tourists were lucky to experience the trip before the doors closed
People walk before a village on the outskirts of North Korea’s northeastern city of Rason, near the borders of both China and Russia, November 21, 2017
Originally set to open in May 2025, the holiday resort which sits on an immaculate white beach is also located next to a rocket-testing site.
But according to the official Korean Central News Agency, the resort’s grand opening will be now pushed back and should open for tourists in June this year.
Uncertainty follows from the message relayed to tour operators to pause operations indefinitely.
South Korean agencies estimate some 880 Russian visitors were able to visit last year, and at least a dozen have travelled from the West on five-day trips organised by Koryo Tours.
Before the pandemic restrictions, some 350,000 people visited the country, an estimated 90 per cent of whom were from China, per the Institute for National Security Strategy think tank, run by South Korea’s intelligence agency.
