North Korea announced on Wednesday that next December, almost five years after the country was completely closed down due to Covid, it will reopen its borders to tourism. Although there are no illusions, things will not be better than before the pandemic, when every tourist had to travel with a police guide at their side (North Korea inaugurates a large beach tourism area).
Two foreign tourism boards, Koryo and KTG, have announced that Samijiyon, a small area accessible across the border with China, will finally reopen to tourists in December, five years after it was closed.
Both organisations understand this to mean that they will be able to leave for Pyongyang, the capital, immediately.
The confirmed opening is at the foot of Mount Paektu, the highest in the country, where the regime says Kim Jong Il was born and which has been modernised as a tourist area. The Korean leader was there recently and said he would build new train lines to the site. On that occasion, Kim said that the preferred tourists would initially be from friendly countries, which no one knows for sure.
Before the pandemic, the vast majority of the few tourists that North Korea received came from China. Russians were allowed to enter to a lesser extent.
