North Korea will renew efforts to promote tourism next year: experts

Sinuiju, a North Korean border city, is seen from China's Dandong across Amnok River spanned by the China–North Korea Friendship Bridge, is seen in this file photo taken Jan. 11, 2022. Experts said on Monday that there would likely be no surprises at the North's upcoming year-end party meeting other than the policy emphasis on renewing efforts to boost tourism after years of pandemic isolation. Yonhap

No surprises expected at year-end party meeting except emphasis on travel industryBy Jung Min-ho

North Korea is set to hold a major party meeting this week, one year after the previous one in which Kim Jong-un, its leader, called for an “exponential increase” in the size of its nuclear arsenal against its adversaries.

The upcoming year-end meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party is expected to promote similar messages, with a focus on strengthening its military and defending its supposed ideological superiority and purity.

If there is anything different this year, it would be a policy emphasis on fostering its tourism industry, according to experts, Monday.

“North Korea had already focused on promoting its tourism industry before the coronavirus pandemic forced it to stop it all,” Kang Chae-yeon, a North Korean refugee-turned-scholar at the National Institute for Unification Education, told The Korea Times. “Next year, efforts to attract foreign visitors will be back on track.”

In a sign of gearing up for such efforts, North Korea adopted a new law in August to “vitalize and expand” its tourism industry, according to its state media.

Under the young leader, North Korea stepped up efforts to develop tourist sites, promoting “world-class” vacation properties across the country, including Samjiyon, a city situated near Mount Paektu, and Wonsan, a port city situated on the East Sea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects a construction project in Samjiyon, a city situated near Mountain Paektu, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in this file photo released in January 2021 by the North's state media. Yonhap

Transforming Samjiyon from a sleepy town into a modern resort complex with luxury hotels and ski slopes was one of the pet projects pushed under Kim. In his New Year address in 2019, he vowed to develop the city as “an ideal socialist village.”

“From Dandong (a Chinese border city), you can see many new buildings in Sinuiju (a North Korean city) for attracting and accommodating foreign tourists. Next year, North Korea is expected to accelerate efforts to attract travelers, mostly from China and Russia, as part of its economic development plan,” said Cheong Seong-chang, an expert on North Korea at the Sejong Institute, a think tank.

Money spent by tourists is one of the few possible sources of hard currency for North Korea. Tourism has been excluded from the sanctions imposed by the United Nations and individual countries. Those sanctions specifically target “the transfer of bulk cash,” but not small sums of tourists’ money.

With little progress on the economy, North Korea will likely highlight the achievements of its military at the party’s meeting, according to Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University.

“The policy direction of the regime has been practically the same since its failure in making a deal with the United States at their Hanoi summit in 2019. These include the development of nuclear capabilities, a hardline stance against South Korea and the U.S. as well as efforts to protect its ideology,” he said.

“North Korea’s biggest worry is its weak performance in the economy. I think this is why it has placed more focus on developing military hardware such as a solid-fuel ballistic missile and a spy satellite through the end of the year to promote them as Kim Jong-un’s accomplishments in 2023.”

Experts said Kim and other leaders could also mention some of their military plans for next year, such as the launch of its second ― and possibly more ― reconnaissance satellite and the expansion of what it claims are tactical nuclear attack submarines.