Why North Korean tourist village shut down after just 3 weeks

Just weeks after opening its doors to tourists, a city in North Korea has abruptly stopped international trips, according to multiple media reports.

Multiple travel agencies that organise tours to Rason, a city near North Korea’s border with China, have shared on social media that tours to the city are currently suspended.

The reason behind the move isn’t clear, and travel guides have been advising tourists to avoid planning any trips to the region.

Let’s take a closer look.

Tourist village in North Korea shuts down

Last month, a number of Western travel businesses that arrange trips to Rason shared details about the tours they had arranged for international visitors after obtaining approval from their North Korean partners.

On Wednesday, though, they posted on social media that visits to Rason were currently suspended.

“Oh no! Just received news from our Korean partners that Rason is closed to everyone. We will keep you posted,” Spain-based travel agency KTG Travels posted on their Facebook.

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The reason is unclear…

KTG’s tours coordinator, Rayco Vega, told news agency AFP that the suspension was confirmed and that “we do not know the reason now how long this will last.”

Beijing-based agency Young Pioneer Tours posted a similar announcement: “We have been advised by our partners in the DPRK that tours to Rason are currently paused. We are in the process of clarifying how this will impact your upcoming trips. We recommend that those planning tours in April and May refrain from booking flights until we have more information.”

Travel agency Koryo Tours, which organised a five-day tour of Rason for foreign tourists just last month, announced: “There has been news that the Rason border may be temporarily closing for tourism. We are currently working to confirm and understand the situation with our partners and will announce any further updates as soon as possible.”

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The sudden suspension of international travel comes after travellers who recently visited Rason publicly criticised North Korea.

Earlier, Business Insider had an interview with German travel influencer Luca Pferdmenges, who was part of the group that visited Rason last month.

The 23-year-old influencer detailed his trip, saying, “But what surprised me most was that they didn’t hide the country’s visible poverty.”

“People in the rural areas were clearly very poor, and we weren’t allowed to photograph them. Many of them were using oxen and carriages. Our guides also very strictly told us not to photograph the farmers’ houses in the countryside because they are very run-down and shabby,” he said.

“Surprisingly, they didn’t close the curtains so we couldn’t see it. The guides also didn’t deny that there is poverty; they just don’t like people taking photos of it and presenting it as the sole truth.”

According to The Korea Times, the suspension could be done to prevent exposing the harsh realities of the isolated nation to the world.

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Opening the doors after COVID

After the pandemic began, North Korea quickly banned tourists, jetted out diplomats and severely curtailed border traffic in one of the world’s most draconian COVID-19 restrictions.

But since 2022, North Korea has been slowly easing curbs and reopening its borders.

In February last year, the hermit nation accepted about 100 Russian tourists for sightseeing. The group consisted of people from the tourism industry and “travellers from literally all parts of Russia from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok," the Russian embassy in Pyongyang said at the time.

North Korea also finally welcomed a small group of foreign tourists via Koryo Tours last month. They were the first international travellers to enter the country in five years, except for the Russians.

Experts at the time believed that opening doors could indicate that the country was gearing up for a full resumption of its international tourism to bring in much-needed foreign currency to revive its struggling economy.

“Since January of 2020, the country has been closed to all international tourists, and we are glad to have finally found an opening in the Rason area, in the far north of North Korea,” Koryo Tours general manager Simon Cockerell said at the time.

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Tourism in North Korea

In 1991, Rason was established as a special economic zone to draw in foreign investment, as per The Independent.

However, it never gained the same level of popularity as the capital, Pyongyang, which is still off-limits to tourists outside of Russia.

Before the pandemic, tourism was an easy, legitimate source of foreign currency for North Korea, which is also one of the world’s most sanctioned countries because of its nuclear programme.

Chinese visitors accounted for about 90 per cent of all foreign arrivals, with 350,000 entering in 2019 alone, reported The Straits Times.

Lee Sangkeun, an expert at the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank run by South Korea’s intelligence agency, last month told AP, “North Korea has been heavily investing on tourism sites, but there have been not much domestic demand. We can assess that North Korea now wants to resume international tourism to bring in many tourists from abroad.”

Following the arrest and eventual death of American student Otto Warmbier in 2017, the United States prohibited its citizens from visiting North Korea.

South Koreans are still not allowed entry to the country.

With inputs from agencies