Kim Jong Un has unveiled a beach resort equipped with water slides, hotels, restaurants and shopping centres in a move to promote tourism.
The North Korean leader was seen relaxing poolside next to his daughter and presumed heir Kim Ju Ae with a pack of cigarettes, cold drink and towel at the east coast Wonsan-Kalma retreat.
It can accommodate up to 20,000 visitors, occupying a 4km (2.5 mile) stretch of beach, according to North Korea state media KCNA.
Footage shared by state media showed Kim inspecting the grounds from a terrace several storeys above sea level, as he smiled and talked to officials.
State media said the Wonsan-Kalma site would be “recorded as one of the greatest successes this year” and “should play a leading role in establishing the tourist culture” of North Korea.
Russia’s ambassador in Pyongyang was in attendance as chief guest as Kim opened the sprawling complex, state media reported.
Tourism remains one of the few ways North Korea can legally earn foreign currency since most of its economic activities are restricted by UN sanctions.
However, Pyongyang’s tourism industry is tightly controlled and designed to showcase a sanitised version of the country.
The opening ceremony was held “with splendor”, state media reported, and Kim expressed “great satisfaction” at the development of the project.
The Wonsan-Kalma resort was the first step in developing cultural tourism in the country, he said, and the government would soon confirm a major plan to develop more large-scale tourist areas.
“Kim Jong Un expressed belief that the wave of happiness to be raised in the Wonsan Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone would enhance its attractive name as a world-level tourist cultural resort, KCNA said.
The beach resort was first announced in 2014 and construction started in 2018, with an initial finish deadline of 2019.
The construction came to a standstill during the 2020 pandemic as the country sealed its borders while international sanctions and material supply issues exacerbated delays.
North Korea started loosening the restrictions in 2023 after three years of almost no tourism, with no foreign visitors allowed in and limited information coming out.
The country is yet to fully lift the ban on foreign tourists it imposed in early 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
From February 2024 it has been accepting Russian tourists amid the deepening relations between the two countries.
But Chinese group tours remain stalled, despite making up more than 90 per cent of visitors before the pandemic. In April, North Korea held the Pyongyang International Marathon for the first time in six years, with about 200 foreign runners participating.
Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said South Korean and American tours to North Korea won’t likely restart anytime soon, though both new liberal South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and US President Donald Trump have expressed hopes to revive dialogue with North Korea.
In January when Trump boasted about his ties with Kim, he said “I think he has tremendous condo capabilities. He’s got a lot of shoreline,” a likely reference to Wonsan-Kalma.
North Korea hasn’t publicly responded to Trump’s outreach. It has repeatedly rejected Washington and Seoul’s dialogue offers and focused on expanding its nuclear weapons program since Kim’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with the US president collapsed in 2019.
