North Korea has opened its doors to a group of international travelers for the 1st time in years

In this file photo, people pay respect to the statues of former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on Mansu Hill on the occasion of the 83rd anniversary of the birth of its late leader Kim Jong Il, in Pyongyang, North Korea, Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Cha Song Ho)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A small group of foreign tourists has visited North Korea in the past week, making them the first international travelers to enter the country in five years except for a group of Russian tourists who went to the North last year.

The latest trip indicates North Korea may be gearing up for a full resumption of its international tourism to bring in much-needed foreign currency to revive its struggling economy, experts say.

The Beijing-based travel company Koryo Tours said it arranged a five-day trip from Feb. 20 to Feb. 24 for 13 international tourists to the northeastern North Korean border city of Rason, where the country’s special economic zone is located.

Koryo Tours General Manager Simon Cockerell said the travelers from the U.K., Canada, Greece, New Zealand, France, Germany, Austria, Australia and Italy crossed by land from China. He said that in Rason, they visited factories, shops, schools and the statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the late grandfather and father of current leader Kim Jong Un.

“Since January of 2020, the country has been closed to all international tourists, and we are glad to have finally found an opening in the Rason area, in the far north of North Korea,” Cockerell said.

“Our first tour has been and gone, and now more tourists on both group and private visits are going in, arranging trips,” he added.

After the pandemic began, North Korea quickly banned tourists, jetted out diplomats and severely curtailed border traffic in one of the world’s most draconian COVID-19 restrictions. But since 2022, North Korea has been slowly easing curbs and reopening its borders.

In February 2024, North Korea accepted about 100 Russian tourists, the first foreign nationals to visit the country for sightseeing. That surprised many observers, who thought the first post-pandemic tourists would come from China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner and major ally.

A total of about 880 Russian tourists visited North Korea throughout 2024, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said, citing official Russian data. Chinese group tours to North Korea remain stalled.

This signals how much North Korea and Russia have moved closer to each other as the North has supplied weapons and troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine. Ties between North Korea and China cooled as China showed its reluctance to join a three-way, anti-U.S. alliance with North Korea and Russia, experts say.

Before the pandemic, tourism was an easy, legitimate source for foreign currency for North Korea, one of the world’s most sanctioned countries because of its nuclear program.

North Korea is expected to open a massive tourism site on the east coast in June. In January when President Donald Trump boasted about his ties with Kim Jong Un, he said that “I think he has tremendous condo capabilities. He’s got a lot of shoreline.” That likely refers to the eastern coast site.

A return of Chinese tourists would be key to making North Korea’s tourism industry lucrative because they represented more than 90% of total international tourists before the pandemic, said Lee Sangkeun, an expert at the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank run by South Korea’s intelligence agency. He said that in the past, up to 300,000 Chinese tourists visited North Korea annually.

“North Korea has been heavily investing on tourism sites, but there have been not much domestic demand,” Lee said. “We can assess that North Korea now wants to resume international tourism to bring in many tourists from abroad.”

The restrictions that North Korea has typically imposed on foreign travelers -- such as requirements that they move with local guides and the banning of photography at sensitive places -- will likely hurt its efforts to develop tourism. Lee said that Rason, the eastern coast site and Pyongyang would be the places where North Korea feels it can easily monitor and control foreign tourists.