A new waterfront resort opened for business this week in North Korea with P.R. hype — but without the foreign visitors that the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, hoped would one day arrive with tourist cash to offset financially punishing sanctions.
On Thursday, state media reported on North Korean families crowding a 2.5-mile-long scenic sandy beach on its central east coast, which began accepting tourists two days earlier. “The joy and optimism of the tourists were overflowing everywhere, and the song of happiness resounded in the windows of bright lodgings,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.
The resort, which is called Wonsan Kalma and can accommodate 20,000 people, is the most ambitious among the seafront or mountainside spa and ski resorts Mr. Kim has been building to attract foreign tourists. Mr. Kim, his wife and his daughter attended a ceremony in late June marking the completion of the facility.
Mr. Kim began promoting tourism after the United Nations imposed severe sanctions in 2017 that banned all of his country’s main exports, including coal and textiles. The sanctions were designed to strip North Korea of the means of earning foreign currency to finance its nuclear and missile programs. But they did not affect tourism, which Mr. Kim saw as a new source of sorely needed foreign currency.
Mr. Kim’s aims were best displayed in the transformation of Kalma Beach. North Korea used to fill it with pieces of artillery during military drills. In recent years, however, Mr. Kim has lined the beach with newly built water parks and multistory resort hotels. South Korean media nicknamed Kalma Beach “North Korea’s Waikiki.”
