The first foreign tourists have set foot in North Korea’s new seaside resort. It recently welcomed 15 visitors from Russia with pictures showing a white sand beach, blue sea, and high-rise hotels.
The Wonsan Kalma was opened by Kim Jong-un in June and marked a new era of tourism in Pyongyang. It is claimed the resort, which costs around £1,500 a week to stay at, can hold 20,000 visitors, offering the chance to swim in the sea, play sports and eat at on-site restaurants. However, the site, which is located on North Korea’s east coast, is only currently open to Russian tourists.
As reported by Sky News, Anastasiya Samsonova was among the 15 visitors who recently visited the Wonson Kalma resort. The 33-year-old HR manager said: “We saw nothing terrible there, there is no danger there. Frankly speaking, we really liked it.”
However, pictures from her visit show the empty resort, with deserted restaurants and unoccupied sun loungers. Anastasiya insisted that she felt “absolutely free” during her visit and was left unfazed by the absence of other tourists.
“The hotel was absolutely new,” she said. Everything was done very beautifully, a good interior … very developed infrastructure.”
She added: “There were a lot of prejudices about what you can and can’t do in North Korea, how you can behave. But actually, we felt absolutely free.”
The resort was reportedly inspired by Benidorm. In 2017, Kim sent a delegation, including high-ranking politicians and architects, to the Spanish holiday hotspot.
The group toured a theme park, local hotels, and a marina. Satellite images of the Wonsan Kalma show similarities in the layout of the two locations, with both including big hotels and a water park.
It comes as Kim continues to try and make North Korea a tourist destination to revive his struggling economy. In 2024, he accepted tourists from Russia before a group of Western tourists visited for the first time in five years.
The Wonsan Kalma is one of North Korea’s most-discussed tourism projects, and there are reportedly plans to build other sites across the country. It was opened in a grand ceremony in June with Kim hailing it a “world-class tourist and cultural destination”.
Russian travel agencies also believe North Korea can become a holiday hotspot. The Vostok Intur travel agency runs twice-weekly tours to the secretive nation, with director Irina Kobeleva insisting they have 400 bookings a month.
She said: “North Korea is an amazing country, unlike any other in the world. It is a country where you will not see any advertising on the streets. And it is very clean – even the asphalt is washed.”
She added: “Our tourists are mostly older people who want to return to the USSR, because there is a feeling that the real North Korea is very similar to what was once in the Soviet Union. But at the same time, there is a huge growing demand among young people.”