North Korea has just opened its own “Benidorm” for 20,000 tourists. The mystery is now who will go there

To Kim Jong-un we usually see him dispatching with uniformed subordinates or supervising missile throws, always cooling in his everlasting MAO neck suit. Much less common is to see it as This Tuesdaywhen it was recorded sitting in a folding chair with a soda and a package of cigarettes while contemplating how people slid down a huge water slide. Nothing strange if we consider that what Kim was doing was neither more nor less than inaugurate The “New Benidorm” North Korea.

The Great question Now, after the fanfare and pomp of the inauguration is: How the hell is intended to fill it a hermetic and suspicious country of foreign tourism?

Welcome to Wonsan Kalma. North Korea already has His particular Benidorm. Officially, with opening tape cut and fireworks included. Tuesday The leader of the nation, Kim Jong-un, went to the new Megacomplex Kangwon tourist to preside over the start -up of one of its biggest projects: a Marina D´or to the Korean, with aquatic parks, hotels, beach kilometers and ability to accommodate 20,000 guests.

MAO NECK WITHOUT. Kim Jong-un is more or less common to see him dispatched with subordinates, meeting with other leaders and supervising missile launches or warships (not always). And in all these cases its aesthetic is usually identical: gray or black suit, usually of the mao neck, and sober expression. Wonsan Kalma is a place of recreation, so there he offered a more informal picture and enjoyed a mass bath which K-pop star.

Kim also appeared accompanied by his wife, Ri Sol-Juwho had had a year and a half away from the spotlights, and his daughter Ju-Aeof 12 years already the one that usually signs up as the future heiress of the family saga. Next to them Kim walked along Wonsan beach, inspected the hotels and even sat on a folding chair (refreshment and pitillo by hand) to see how a comrade slid down a water slide.

Neither easy nor fast. Wonsan-Kalma is news because North Korea He has just given it By inaugurated, but in reality the project is not new, much less unknown. Moreover, he has been talking about him since 2013, when Kim Jong-un, then just enthroned in the Korea Workers Party advertisement His desire to turn Wonsan into a “tourist city.” Curious bet if one takes into account that the authorities had used the region to Try your missiles.

That Kim opts precisely in that area of ​​North Korea is no coincidence: he grew up there, surrounded by luxury, and his coast is bathed by the sea of ​​Japan. The idea was that the new tourist complex was Ready in 2022but on the way several inconveniences crossed: the covid and a serious shortage of materials aggravated by international sanctions, so that his calendar was expanding until he went into the second half of the decade. Last summer the state agency KCNA slid that Wonsan Kalma could be ready in May. It will take something else: you will start receiving visitors July 1.

And who will visit it? We know that Wonsan Kalma has hotels, aquatic parks, pools with slides, four kilometers of beachrestaurants and commercial areas, but what is not so clear is how North Korea will manage to fill it. Especially since the government itself remembers that it has the capacity for tens of thousands of visitors: their accommodations can host 20,000 people And in his day he slid that the capacity of the complex would be even greater.

The KCNA agency only states that Wonsan-Kalma will begin offering services to “National Clients” As of July 1, without mention of plans to promote the complex or capture visitors outside the country. To the inauguration of Wonsan Kalma, yes, a delegation of Russian authorities including the ambassador, one more sample of the approach between Pyongyang and Moscow.

Gesture question. It is not easy to know what plans Kim has in tourism, one of the few legal channels available to the nation to capture foreign currencies; But over the last months the North Korean regime has given forward steps (and Also some other behind) to open timidly to foreign tourism, knocked out after pandemic.

By mid -2023 the restrictions They relaxedmonths later the country began to receive Russian visitors already early this year He surprised the world when opening its doors to a reduced handful of Western tourists. That did not last long. Weeks later He turned back. In April the capital celebrated a marathon in which allowed Run to foreigners, especially Russians and Ethiopians.

Looking at Russia. The CNN Precise that at the moment the Russians seem to be the only ones who will have it more or less easy to step on the new tourist complex. One of his agencies, Vostok Intur, is in fact promoting several packages for the coming months with Pyongyang scale. Your price? Around 1,800 dollars. In 2019 North Korea received some 300,000 visitors foreigners, especially Chinese, who generated a flow of between 90 and 150 million dollars.

Images | KCNA

In Xataka | North Korea has revealed a small manhattan of 10,000 apartments. The problem is what is behind the facade