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Foreign tourists to return to North Korea for first time since Covid-19 pandemic

Published: 16 Feb. 2025, 18:52 Updated: 16 Feb. 2025, 18:59

MICHAEL LEE
[email protected]

A notice on Korea Konsult's webpage advertises the group's upcoming trip to the Rason special economic zone from March 6 to 10 to mark International Women's Day. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Multiple companies that run group tours of North Korea have begun offering trips to the Rason special economic zone, marking the return of foreign tourists to the North for the first time since the regime sealed its borders at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020.

Koryo Tours and Young Pioneers, which are both travel agencies that specialize in trips to the North, announced on Thursday that their representatives had entered the northeastern Rason region ahead of the official reopening of the zone on Feb. 20.

Rason is a portmanteau of Rajin and Sonbong, the two main trading posts in the area, which borders both China and Russia.

The zone was established in 1991, about a decade after China began opening its economy.

In a post uploaded to its website, Sweden-based tour agency Korea Konsult noted that the capital Pyongyang remains closed to tourists but said that the Rason region offers “the opportunity to visit not only monuments, museums and natural attractions, but also small commercial enterprises, the port, the bank and the market.”

The tour being currently advertised on Korea Konsult’s webpage, which the agency said is intended to mark International Women’s Day, is scheduled to run from March 6 to 10 and includes visits to Rajin, Pipha Island, Sonbong, the Tumen River and Wonjong.

The tour operator said it would accept reservations for a spot on the upcoming trip until Feb. 24 and require a deposit of 618 euros ($648) per person.

However, South Korean and U.S. nationals cannot sign up for the tours.

South Koreans must obtain special permission from both South and North Korean authorities to visit the North, while the U.S. State Department has maintained a travel ban on North Korea since 2017, when American college student Otto Warmbier died in a comatose state after being released from over a year of captivity inside the regime.

According to the tour operator, a visa is not required to visit the Rason region as “electronic entry approval from the DPRK authorities is sufficient” and “issued much faster than a regular visa.”

DPRK is the acronym for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Another tour company called KTG, which is based in China and specializes in tours of North Korea, also announced that it had received word from North Korean officials that visitors could enter the Rason region beginning on Feb. 20.

KTG stopped accepting reservations for the upcoming tour on Saturday. A deposit of 690 euros was required per person to save a seat on the trip.

BY MICHAEL LEE [[email protected]]