A massive tourist city has been built on North Korea‘s eastern coast: the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone. Long pursued by the Kim Jong Un regime, the project opened in July 2025. Boasting large-scale accommodations capable of hosting around 20,000 people, beaches, water parks, and commercial and convenience facilities, Pyongyang heavily promoted the area as a world-class tourist destination. Yet, one year later, one cannot help but ask: Who is North Korea waiting for?
Wonsan-Kalma was developed not as a domestic vacation spot for its own citizens, but from the start as a core facility to attract foreign tourists and earn hard currency. For a North Korea bound by international economic sanctions, tourism represents a relatively accessible industry for securing foreign revenue. The problem, however, is that building tourist facilities and actually bringing in tourists are entirely different challenges.
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The facilities are already complete. Hotels, beaches, water parks, and various amenities are in place, and in June 2026, Kim Jong Un personally inspected the railway station designated for transporting tourists. Yet, the scope of foreign visitors actually coming to the site remains severely limited. Since its opening, group tours have been composed almost entirely of Russian visitors, while Chinese tourists — who historically accounted for the vast portion of North Korea’s tourism — have yet to return in earnest following the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2026, Chinese Ambassador to North Korea Wang Yajun visited Wonsan-Kalma, followed by a promotion of the zone by the Chinese Embassy in March and a visit by senior Chinese Communist Party official Wang Huning in July. While these scenes demonstrate that China remains one of the tourists North Korea desires most, they have yet to translate into an actual revival of Chinese tourism.
This is not merely a tourism issue. It is fundamentally an economic one. With normal trade and financial transactions blocked by sanctions, North Korea’s avenues for acquiring hard currency are severely restricted. Tourism offers a relatively peaceful way to earn cash without having to sell weapons or risk military conflict. Yet, this is precisely where the fundamental dilemma of the North Korean regime begins.
Tourism requires openness. Tourists do not bring money alone; they carry external information and culture, and they take back what they see and experience to the outside world. The more tourists arrive, the more foreign currency flows in, but the opportunities for North Korean society to come into contact with the outside world expand simultaneously. What Pyongyang wants is tourism where foreign cash enters while external influence stays out. Yet, developing a tourism industry is virtually impossible without granting a baseline of freedom in movement and information. Wonsan-Kalma stands right in the eye of this contradiction: It wants to build a world-class resort but does not want to be fully connected to the world, and it wants foreign currency while seeking to tightly control the information brought by the people who spend it.
Wonsan-Kalma also serves as a cross section of the “prosperity” envisioned by the Kim Jong Un regime. While interest among North Korean citizens has grown, analysts note that high costs make it an inaccessible space for the average resident. Built for foreigners yet difficult for ordinary citizens to visit — this is another contradiction embodied by Wonsan-Kalma.
Ultimately, the pivotal variable is China. Russian tourists alone cannot sustain the scale of the tourism industry North Korea envisions; the economic dynamics will only shift when Chinese tourists, crossing the shared border, return. Yet, Pyongyang has historically guarded against excessive economic dependence on Beijing, and its recent strengthening of ties with Moscow aligns with this complex diplomatic balancing act. Welcoming Russian tourists while promoting the zone to China vividly illustrates the complex calculations of North Korean diplomacy striving to secure hard currency under severe sanctions.
Tourism is not an industry conjured into existence simply by erecting buildings. Travelers seek safety, convenience, and the feeling of being welcomed. Declaring the creation of a world-class destination and actually having travelers choose it as a vacation spot are two entirely different matters. The success of Wonsan-Kalma will depend not on the size of its hotels or the beauty of its beaches, but on how many foreigners consistently choose to visit and express a willingness to spend their money there again. That answer remains unwritten.
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Perhaps Wonsan-Kalma is both North Korea’s attempt to carve out a new lifeline under sanctions and a mirror reflecting the structural limits of its system. You cannot grow a tourism industry without connecting to the world, yet the moment you connect, systemic controls risk unraveling. This is the hardest challenge North Korea faces.
North Korea is waiting for tourists. But the moment tourists step inside, money is not the only thing that enters — people, information, and outside gazes arrive right along with them. The real question is not whether tourists will come to North Korea. It is whether North Korea can accommodate tourists while preserving its current system intact. The future of Wonsan-Kalma may ultimately hinge on the answer to that very question.
Park Joonhye is a research fellow at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Kyungnam University. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics and Unification Studies from the University of North Korean Studies.
