After sealing its borders five years ago due to the Covid-19 pandemic, North Korea has reopened a border city to foreign tourists, reports France 24.
Two tour operators with links in China and one based in Spain said they had been notified by Pyongyang that foreign travellers were now able to visit Rason. Perched on the northeastern tip of North Korea, Rason is a port city of around 205,000 people located near the borders with Russia and China.
Budget travel agency Young Pioneer Tours (YPT) said the city was open “effective immediately” in a notice on its website dated 16 January. Information on group and private tour costs, as well as dates, are not yet available. The same notice informs travellers that the company “has suspended 2025 and 2026 group tours to Pyongyang” based on guidance from its partners in North Korea.
[See more: Outbound travel has recovered to 2019 levels, reports say]
North Korea shut its borders in early 2020 against the spread of Covid, barring even North Korean citizens from re-entering the country until August 2023. Reopening to some trade and official delegations soon followed and, by last year, international flights resumed and Russian tourists were permitted to enter the country.
“Chinese visitors are expected to be the first into the zone”, according to YPT, referring to Rason’s status as the first special economic zone in North Korea. China is by far the country’s most important market, with Chinese citizens accounting for around 90 percent of the record 300,000 foreign tourists who visited North Korea in 2019.
Citizens of the US and South Korea would need to secure special exemptions to enter. The North is still technically at war with South Korea, while the US banned travel to North Korea after the imprisonment and subsequent death of student Otto Warmbier in 2017.
