North Koreans swim and play at a beach resort touted as a boost for
tourism
[July 02, 2025] By
HYUNG-JIN KIM
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Koreans swam, rode water park slides and
enjoyed other water activities at a newly opened mammoth beach resort,
state media reported Wednesday, as the country largely maintains a ban
on the entry of foreign tourists.
The Wonsan-Kalma eastern coastal tourist zone, which North Korea says
can accommodate nearly 20,000 people, is at the heart of leader Kim Jong
Un’s push to boost tourism as a way to improve his country’s struggling
economy. But prospects for the resort, the biggest tourist complex in
North Korea, aren’t clear, as the country won’t likely fully reopen its
borders and embrace Western tourists anytime soon, observers say.
The official Korean Central News Agency reported the Wonsan-Kalma area
began service Tuesday, drawing a large number of North Koreans who
enjoyed open water swimming, slides and other attractions at a water
park and various water activities in the area.
“The guests’ hearts were filled with overwhelming emotion as they felt
the astonishing new heights of our-style tourism culture blossoming
under the era of the Workers’ Party," KCNA said in a typical
propaganda-driven dispatch.
Photos released by North Korean state media showed children with tubes
and inflatable balls dipping into the sea, while others in colorful
swimsuits beamed while sitting beneath red-and-white parasols.
Kim said at the inaugural ceremony last week the site would be recorded
as “one of the greatest successes this year" and called its opening “the
proud first step” toward realizing the government’s policy of developing
tourism.
Since 2022, North Korea has been slowly easing the curbs imposed during
the COVID-19 pandemic and reopening its borders in phases. But the
country hasn’t said whether and when it would fully resume international
tourism.
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This photo provided on July 2, 2025, by the North Korean government,
shows a beach resort in the Wonsan-Kalma eastern coastal tourist
zone on July 1, 2025. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service
via AP)
 Chinese group tours, which made up
more than 90% of visitors before the pandemic, remain stalled while
there are questions about ties between the two socialist neighbors.
In February this year, North Korea allowed a small group of
international tourists to visit its northeastern border city of
Rason, only to stop that tour program in less than a month.
Since February 2024, North Korea has been accepting Russian tourists
amid expanding military cooperation between the countries. But
Russian government records seen by South Korean experts show a
little more than 2,000 Russians, only about 880 of them tourists,
visited North Korea last year, a number that is too small to revive
North Korea's tourism.
Russia’s Primorsky region, which borders North Korea, said last week
that the first group of Russian tourists to the Wonsan-Kalma resort
will depart on July 7 for a eight-day trip that includes a visit to
Pyongyang.
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Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.
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