GRAND OPENING, GRAND CLOSING

Kim Jong Un’s New Water Park Promptly Boots Out Tourists

The Wonsan Kalma Coastal Tourism Zone, which opened less than three weeks ago, forms a key part of the North Korean regime’s efforts to attract more foreign visitors.

A new resort in North Korea, specifically designed to attract more tourists to the isolated ultra-authoritarian state, has shut its gates to foreign visitors less than three weeks after its grand opening. Supreme Leader Kim Jon Un inaugurated the Wonsan Kalma Coastal Tourism Zone—a beachfront development featuring a waterpark, hotels, restaurants and shopping malls—on July 1, ahead of the planned launch of direct flights between Moscow and Pyongyang. It comes after the country opened up to Russian nationals again last year, and to Western visitors this February, following a years-long suspension of tourism in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. While it remains unclear at this stage why the new zone has so abruptly closed its gates to foreigners, the resort had drawn fierce criticism since it first broke ground in 2018, amid reports of alleged mistreatment of workers, harsh working conditions and poor pay.