Would you stay in a North Korean spa resort? Kim Jong-un opens a new mountain ski and hot spring retreat in bid to lure tourists
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un opened a new mountain spa and ski resort that’s intended for people to enjoy “high civilisation under socialism” in another example of the country using tourism – which is exempt from crippling UN sanctions – to build revenue for its broken economy.
Kim cut the ribbon during the ceremonial opening of the Yangdok Hot Spring Cultural Recreation Center and praised his soldiers for creating a “miracle and prefect edifice” that serves the ruling party’s efforts to guide people to modern civilisation, a state media report said.
North Korea’s state TV showed aerial footage of the resort, including its red-roofed hotels, hot spring spas, ski slope and horse-riding park.
The broadcast showed thousands of soldiers and flag-waving civilians and children welcoming Kim at the site, which he visited at least four times this year, according to state media. He smiled as he toured the facilities, which included a solo chairlift ride above the ski slope.
7 top places to eat like a local in Seoul
“(Kim) hardly repressed his happiness, saying that it has become possible to provide people with new culture, and one more plan of the Party to make our people enjoy high civilisation under socialism as early as possible has come true,” Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency reported.
The Yangdok resort, which North Korea began building last year, has been one of Kim’s major development projects, along with another mountain resort, recently completed in the northern town of Samjiyon and a summer resort being built in the coastal town of Wonsan.
North Korea also last week announced the creation of a company dedicated to creating medical tourism services for foreign visitors at the country’s hot spring spas and state-run hospitals, where they will be able to receive cataract surgeries, dental implants and breast tumour treatments.
What’s hot in Korea: top K-pop news in November
North Korea has also demanded South Korea tear down its hotels and other facilities at the North’s Diamond Mountain resort after Kim declared that the country would redevelop the site on its own. The announcement came after months of frustration over the South’s unwillingness to defy US-led sanctions and restart South Korean tours to the resort, which were suspended in 2008 after a North Korean guard fatally shot a South Korean tourist.
Why Seoul and Jeju Island are Korea’s top tourist destinations
Tourism is excluded from the heavy sanctions the UN Security Council has imposed on the North over its nuclear weapons programme, which includes a full ban on key exports like coal, textile and seafood, and strict limitations on oil imports. The sanctions also require all UN members to repatriate all North Korean labourers based in their countries by December.
Want more stories like this? Sign up here. Follow STYLE on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter .
North Korea hopes opening its doors to tourists will boost its beleaguered economy – enter the Yangdok Hot Spring Cultural Recreation Center, offering ‘high civilisation under socialism’