World's most secretive country to welcome tourists for time since the pandemic
Russian tourists reportedly going on a ski trip to North Korea will be the first international travellers to visit the country since border closings in January 2020 amid the global pandemic lockdown. The tour, published by the Russian state-run Tass news agency and advertised by a Russian tour agency this week, underscores deepening cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang. It follows the meeting last September between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East. The trip scheduled for February was a surprise to Asia observers, who had expected the first post-pandemic tourists to North Korea to come from China, the North’s biggest diplomatic ally and economic pipeline. The webpage of the tour agency, Vostok Intur, says the four-day trip is to start on February 9. According to a Tass report Wednesday, an unspecified number of tourists from Russia's far eastern region of Primorye will first fly to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, where they will visit monuments such as the “Tower of Juche Idea,” named after the North’s guiding philosophy of “juche” or self-reliance. The tourists will then travel on to the North’s Masik Pass on the east coast, where the country’s most modern ski resort is located, Tass said. Tass said the trip was arranged under an agreement reached between Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of the Primorye region, and North Korean authorities. Kozhemyako travelled to Pyongyang in December for talks on boosting economic ties as part of a flurry of bilateral exchanges since the Kim-Putin summit. Ahead of the trip, he told Russian media he expected to discuss tourism, agriculture and trade cooperation. Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said that North Korea's receiving Russian tourists before Chinese ones proves again Kim Jong Un is focusing on bolstering partnerships with Russia. He said North Korea and Russia are expected to expand their cooperation in other sectors. But the resumption of Chinese travel will still likely serve as a much bigger source of revenues as they accounted for about 90% of the total international tourists to North Korea before the pandemic. <br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2024-01-15/general/worlds-most-secretive-country-to-welcome-tourists-for-time-since-the-pandemic
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World's most secretive country to welcome tourists for time since the pandemic
Russian tourists reportedly going on a ski trip to North Korea will be the first international travellers to visit the country since border closings in January 2020 amid the global pandemic lockdown. The tour, published by the Russian state-run Tass news agency and advertised by a Russian tour agency this week, underscores deepening cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang. It follows the meeting last September between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East. The trip scheduled for February was a surprise to Asia observers, who had expected the first post-pandemic tourists to North Korea to come from China, the North’s biggest diplomatic ally and economic pipeline. The webpage of the tour agency, Vostok Intur, says the four-day trip is to start on February 9. According to a Tass report Wednesday, an unspecified number of tourists from Russia's far eastern region of Primorye will first fly to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, where they will visit monuments such as the “Tower of Juche Idea,” named after the North’s guiding philosophy of “juche” or self-reliance. The tourists will then travel on to the North’s Masik Pass on the east coast, where the country’s most modern ski resort is located, Tass said. Tass said the trip was arranged under an agreement reached between Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of the Primorye region, and North Korean authorities. Kozhemyako travelled to Pyongyang in December for talks on boosting economic ties as part of a flurry of bilateral exchanges since the Kim-Putin summit. Ahead of the trip, he told Russian media he expected to discuss tourism, agriculture and trade cooperation. Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said that North Korea's receiving Russian tourists before Chinese ones proves again Kim Jong Un is focusing on bolstering partnerships with Russia. He said North Korea and Russia are expected to expand their cooperation in other sectors. But the resumption of Chinese travel will still likely serve as a much bigger source of revenues as they accounted for about 90% of the total international tourists to North Korea before the pandemic. <br/>
