Tag: tourism

British Woman Promotes Tourism within North Korea

I am sure Ms. Stephens feels like she is doing something positive, but in my opinion she is just enabling the Kim regime to receive tourism dollars that ultimately goes to funding their nuclear and missile programs that threatens regional peace:

When British traveler Zoe Stephens, 30, decided to tour North Korea for the first time in 2017, she didn’t think she would be doing it for a living.

“I went to North Korea as a tourist first, pretty much the same way as everyone else. I realized it’s nothing like what the media says,” she told The Korea Herald. She said “the real North Korea” took her by surprise and charmed her.

“So I decided that I wanted to start doing tours to show everyone what the media wasn’t showing — the human side to North Korea.”

Since then she has visited North Korea more than two dozen times, staying as long as a month at a time until the pandemic shut down the borders. She eventually began working as a tour guide for a Beijing-based company Koryo Tours, which mainly offers travel programs to North Korea.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but Ms. Stephens claims she has free access to go around the country and take pictures. However, I doubt they are taking her to the labor camps and firing squads. Keep that in mind every time someone tells you how great North Korea is to visit.

Russia and North Korea to Increase Tourism Exchanges

I don’t know why anyone would want to visit North Korea other than for morbid curiosity. Ever dollar spent there is helping to fund the regime:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been briefed on tourist exchanges between Moscow and Pyongyang and preparations for his visit to North Korea are underway, the Kremlin has said.

The Russian news agency TASS on Saturday (local time) quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying, “Preparations for the visit are proceeding at their own pace.”

Putin has not visited North Korea since July 2000.

TASS also reported that Alexander Kozlov, the environment minister for Moscow, who is leading an intergovernmental commission on cooperation with North Korea, touted the growing popularity of tourist exchanges between the two countries during his meeting with Putin earlier Saturday.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

North Korea to Promote International Tourism in 2024

With North Korea wanting to reopen international tourism I guess we will see who will be the next western fool to get detained in 2024:

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.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Study Finds that Korean Tourists Spend 1/3 of What Japanese Spend While Visiting Guam

Korean tourism numbers may be up on Guam, but they are not spending nearly as much as Japanese tourists:

Yeon Hee Oh, left, and Hong Kyu Kim, tourists visiting the island from Seoul, Korea, together strike a comical pose for a photo during a stop at Puntan Dos Amantes, or Two Lovers Point, on Saturday, March 31, 2018.

Visitor arrivals from Korea are making up for a decline in arrivals from Japan, but since last summer, Guam Visitors Bureau officials have noted the average Korean tourist spends much less on island than the average Japanese tourist.

Lately, they’ve been spending about one-third of what the average Japanese visitor spends here, according to the tourism agency.

As of January, the average Japanese traveler spent about $578 per day on island, compared to only $187.40 per day for a Korean traveler. The figures are similar for February, according to GVB, although that spending report hasn’t been released.

“We’re seeing a lot more cost-conscious visitors,” Nico Fujikawa, GVB tourism research director, said about visitors from Korea. “They’re looking for a deal. They’re kind of like locals.”  [Guam PDN]

You can read more at the link.

Last American Tourists Travel to North Korea

The final group of Americans willing to pay Kim Jong-un foreign currency to help support his missile and nuclear programs has traveled to North Korea:

A group of American travelers ― probably the last before the U.S. government bans its citizens from visiting the reclusive state from Sept. 1 ― landed in North Korea on Saturday.

The eight travelers ― include CNN correspondent Will Ripley on his 14th trip ― were undeterred by possible arrest, imprisonment or nuclear war.

Details about the other tourists, including their itinerary, are unknown. Beijing-based Koryo Tours organized the visit, which general manager Simon Cockerell is leading on his 165th trip to the North.

“It [the ban] is a pity for anyone curious who wants to go, but especially for North Koreans who might want to know what American visitors are really like,” Cockerell told CNN.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but this travel ban should have been in place a long time ago.

North Korean Threats Have Not Stopped Tourists From Visiting Guam

With the vast majority of Guam’s tourists coming from Japan and South Korea it makes sense that they are unfazed by the recent rhetoric from North Korea which they have grown accustomed to:

Tourists haven’t been deterred from visiting the tropical island of Guam even though the U.S. territory has been the target of threats from North Korea during a week of angry words exchanged by Pyongyang and Washington.

Chiho Tsuchiya of Japan heard the news, but she decided to come anyway with her husband and two children. “I feel Japan and Korea also can get danger from North Korea, so staying home is the same,” said the 40-year-old.

Won Hyung-jin, an official from Modetour, a large South Korean travel agency, said several customers called with concerns, but they weren’t worried enough to pay cancellation fees for their trips.

“It seems North Korea racks up tension once or twice every year, and travelers have become insensitive about it,” Won said. His company has sent about 5,000 travelers to Guam a month this year, mostly on package tours.  [Bloomberg]

You can read more at the link.

President Trump Calls Guam Governor to Reassure Him of US Commitment

The phone call between President Trump and Guam Governor Eddie Calvo may have been about assuring the island the US government completely supports them, but it is amazing how many news headlines I saw that focused on the joke Trump made about how the current tensions will improve Guam tourism:

Eddie Calvo

If there’s one thing that Guam does not have to worry about while the tiny island is in the nuclear cross hairs of North Korea, it’s tourism, President Trump told the island’s governor in a phone call made public on Saturday.

The threat by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to create “an enveloping fire” around the tiny United States territory in the Western Pacific will bolster Guam tourism “tenfold,” Mr. Trump said in the recorded conversation with Gov. Eddie Calvo.

The recording was put on the Republican governor’s Facebook page and other social media accounts.

Mr. Trump said: “I have to tell you, you have become extremely famous all over the world. They are talking about Guam; and they’re talking about you.” And when it comes to tourism, he added, “I can say this: You’re going to go up, like, tenfold with the expenditure of no money.”  [New York Times]

You can read more at the link and watch the video of the phone call below: