Why Chinese Tourists Are Saying ‘No’ to Visiting North Korea

A statue of Mao Zedong in a tour bus station in China

Following Chinese President Xi Jin-ping’s recent visit to Pyongyang, optimism has surged among Chinese travel agencies hoping for a revival of cross-border tourism. With July marking the traditional peak summer travel season, tour operators are blitzing social media with promotional packages. Yet, beneath the surface of this state-encouraged diplomatic warmth, Chinese tourists are overwhelmingly saying “no thanks” to North Korea.

THE 8,000 YUAN QUESTION

For years, Chinese travelers made up most of North Korea’s foreign visitors, providing a crucial lifeline of hard currency to the heavily sanctioned regime (read more on Is It Ethical to Travel to North Korea). Hoping to revive that pipeline, agencies in China’s Beijing, Nanjing and Shenyang have been aggressively marketing July departures. The itineraries circulating online propose a seven-night journey via the international train from the Chinese border city of Dandong to Pyongyang. The tours promise stops at iconic state monuments like the Juche Tower, the Arch of Triumph, the Mansudae Art Studio and the border village of Panmungak.

However, these packages come with a steep price tag: approximately 8,000 Chinese yuan (around $1,100 USD). In China’s current economic climate, consumers are becoming intensely value-conscious. Across online platforms like China’s Google, Baidu, commenters have been quick to point out that even spending 5,800 yuan is an exorbitant amount for a destination that many increasingly view as outdated and unappealing. For the same price, they could enjoy a relatively luxurious, unrestricted holiday in South Asia. One recent visitor who spent five days in North Korea noted the absurd inflation for foreigners: “A single watermelon costs 160 RMB (approximately $24 USD). Whatever you do, it feels like you are spending dozens of times the normal price.” Another traveler from Hangzhou, the birthplace and headquarters of tech giant Alibaba Group, who spent six days between Pyongyang and Sinuiju, echoed this sentiment. Confined to the Yanggakdo Hotel on an “isolated island” where tourists cannot leave the gates without a guide, he observed that even basic modern necessities are priced as extreme luxuries in North Korea: “There is virtually no entertainment, and internet is shockingly expensive – $150 USD for 1GB of data … and the connection is unbearably slow. If you factor in the tour fee and personal expenses, you are burning through thousands of yuan a day just to be able to do anything.”

A SCRIPTED REALITY

Beyond the financial cost, the actual travel experience is far from a relaxing getaway. One recent tourist even described the train journey from Dandong as a “survival challenge,” as the trains are “dilapidated and freezing, transporting visitors back decades into history.” Upon arrival in Pyongyang, the atmosphere left an equally haunting impression, with a tourist detailing his experience as one filled with extreme contradictions: “My impression of Pyongyang is a city that is both glamorous and run-down, high-profile yet deadly silent, characterized by extreme order and extreme emptiness. … It is so quiet that there is not even a single clothes drying rack in sight, smartphones have no signal and female traffic police simply turn their backs to you. Yet it is also incredibly glamorous – huge crowds march in perfect unison, towering 70-story buildings, spotless model streets without a speck of rubbish and tour guides who are always smiling.”

Other visitors shared similar experiences, describing the streets as exuding a “silent pressure,” and likening Pyongyang to “a city where no one speaks.” Meanwhile, this eerie silence is frequently juxtaposed with “incredibly loud” state propaganda. A tourist noted, “imagine dozens of giant loudspeakers buzzing simultaneously over your head without stopping. They hand out prizes, pots and soap on the street, telling you it is a blessing from the state.” To many, this “scripted city” feels more like a movie set than a living capital, especially when the day abruptly ends at 11 p.m., when Pyongyang cuts its power and the façade falls away, leaving tourists in the dark. For those who visit, this abrupt darkness serves as a brief, jarring glimpse into the profound daily hardships and realities endured by the people who live there.

THE DEMAND FOR FREEDOM

Among other criticisms, Chinese netizens are voicing a common, though highly ironic complaint: North Korea simply does not offer enough personal freedom. Travel to the DPRK has always required strict adherence to state-approved itineraries. Wandering away from the group, interacting with locals, taking unauthorized photographs or speaking freely about politics are strictly forbidden: “All you can do is obediently join a tour group, follow the crowd step-by-step and avoid doing anything that might upset the guide.” In the past, perhaps many Chinese tourists viewed this as a nostalgic novelty, like a trip back in time to an era resembling China’s own mid-century past, but today, the novelty has worn off. Modern Chinese travelers, accustomed to the autonomy of independent global travel, are increasingly chafing at the restrictions, with one visitor complaining that “you are stared at the entire time. … Communication has zero privacy … you just listen to orders. When reminded of the strict system in place, you are expected to simply remain silent.”

Interestingly, discussions criticizing North Korea’s lack of freedom of speech and movement are circulating widely on major Chinese platforms without obvious signs of state censorship. The fact that Beijing’s sophisticated censorship apparatus is allowing these critical discussions to remain live suggests that Chinese authorities may be perfectly comfortable letting grassroots sentiment dictate the pace of economic engagement with Pyongyang, regardless of the recent summit’s optics.

“ “After reading this, [we should] appreciate even more when we can travel freely.””

Perhaps the most remarkable encapsulation of this shifting dynamic came from an unexpected source. Underneath a recent social media post detailing the restrictive realities of touring North Korea, an official account belonging to the Chongqing China Youth Travel Service left a comment that quickly caught attention: “After reading this, [we should] appreciate even more when we can travel freely.” The tone is indeed striking, especially coming from a state-owned and state-controlled enterprise that is deeply embedded in the government’s tourism sector. By publicly and implicitly contrasting the travel freedoms enjoyed by Chinese citizens elsewhere with the constraints of their neighbor, it becomes clear that this year’s marketing push faces an uphill battle.

As summer peaks and the travel agencies wait for an official resumption of tourist visa issuance that has yet to fully materialize, the message from the Chinese public is loud and clear. Diplomatic ties might open the door, but it will take much more than expensive, standardized itineraries to convince them to walk through it. More importantly, as we reflect on these highly controlled tours, our hearts remain with the people of North Korea, maintaining a quiet hope for a day when true freedom, peace, and lasting restoration can reach them.

Is It Ethical to Travel to North Korea?

While North Korean defectors are prepared to risk everything and even die just to escape to freedom in South Korea, among other countries, it is ironic to learn that tourism in North Korea has been booming, with around 100,000 Chinese visitors and 5,000 western tourists flocking to Pyongyang each year before the pandemic. Even though most governments recommend against traveling to the DPRK following the arbitrary arrests of foreign citizens in the past decade, North Korea received 1,800 tourists every day in July and August 2018 alone. According to 38 North, North Korea’s tourism revenue rose around 400% between 2014 and 2019, while several tour agencies added that demand to visit the reclusive North never waned even during the pandemic, “I receive emails daily from those asking if North Korea has reopened and if they can go.”

As rumors about North Korea reopening its borders to welcome tourists from mid-June 2023 begin to spread, Chinese tour agencies are starting to post advertisements on social media promoting five to six-day government-approved itineraries priced between 2,980 RMB ($430 USD) and 4,280 RMB ($618 USD). Perhaps driven by the huge source of revenue generated from Chinese tourists, the country with the strictest pandemic border restrictions to this day appears to even allow visitors to enter without a negative COVID-19 test and travel mask-free.

DEMAND FOR TOURISM SURGES

Visitors to North Korea must travel as part of a guided tour, where state guides monitor and restrict tourists’ movements throughout the journey. Trips to North Korea are not cheap. The cost of a four-full-day shared tour offered by Young Pioneer Tours in July 2023 exclusive of flights, costs of visas, among other things, is 995 euros ($1,100 USD). Apart from the extortionate costs, tour agencies are selective of their customers. The China-based travel agency that sent 22-year-old American student Otto Warmbier, who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor and later died in a hospital after returning to the U.S., announced that it would no longer take U.S. citizens on for similar tours, as the “assessment of risk for Americans visiting North Korea has become too high.”

While human rights groups have argued that the North Korean tourism industry serves only “to fund and legitimize the regime,” it is not surprising that the heavy restrictions and slogans describing “the places your mother wants you to stay away from” used by tour agencies like Young Pioneer Tours help spark interests and gather momentum among adventurous travelers from the west. After all, the fact that freedom is mostly the global norm nowadays and dictatorship sounds like fiction makes North Korea an intriguing destination.

However, reviews have not always been positive. American blogger, Benjamin Young, told NK News that “I thought I was being adventurous … looking back on it, I was just naïve. But I got out of North Korea healthy. Warmbier was not so lucky.” He added that “You cannot truly engage with the North Korean people. You can only engage with the regime … who simply operate on a different level.” This was confirmed by North Korean defector, Ji Min-kang, who described that “Outsiders can’t communicate with the citizens and the guides control all that they see … You cannot see the real North Korea as a tourist.”

TOURISM CASH COW

Tourism is vital to North Korea in two folds. Firstly, it offers a dependable and stable source of foreign currency, a commodity that is widely in demand that the regime struggles to obtain due to international sanctions restricting its exports. Secondly, it supports the country’s goal to accomplish the Juche aspiration of self-reliance. Although there is no official data available, it is estimated that tourists who visited North Korea in 2019 generated as much as $175 million USD in earnings from tourism alone that year.

Conventional options include tours to national vacation spots like the Masikryong Ski Resort, the Wonsasn-Kalma Beach Resort, the mountain resort of Samjiyon and the Mt. Kumgang tourist area. There are also unorthodox and off-the-beaten-path activities such as the Pyongyang Marathon and medical tourism aimed at offering foreign visitors with treatments including cataract surgery, dental implants and therapy for tumors. The North Korean government has also been creative with the way it fabricates the image of inclusion while exploiting foreign talent. For instance, a one-month volunteer program was offered by Pyongyang Tourism College, which sought English-speakers to teach North Korea’s prospective tour guides English and foreign etiquette in exchange for “unparalleled levels of interaction and engagement with local Koreans,” cost each volunteer 1,000 euros ($1,105 USD). Although it claimed to be running on a not-for-profit basis with excess funds spent on the tourism library at the college, a former British volunteer recalled being driven around in luxury cars during his visit and not allowed freedom of movement.

Meanwhile, tourists are conveniently used by the government as propaganda aimed at brainwashing its own people. According to Hyeonseo Lee, a North Korean activist who escaped the country in 1997, “They are required to bow to the large statue of our first dictator, Kim Il-sung,” and these images are used by “propagandists to show North Koreans that foreigners come from all over the world to pay homage to the Dear Leader … North Korea’s supremacy must be true.” Consequently, visiting North Korea as a tourist in a nutshell essentially involves participating in an expensive crash course to learn about lies the leadership projects through an enterprise that profits all parties involved.

Is it ethical to visit a place like North Korea where revenue generated from tourism is fed right back into the totalitarian machine? There’s no denying that the mystery of North Korea is a draw to the outside world. But we’re reminded of the reasons why so many countries have imposed sanctions against North Korea and why the inhumane treatment of their own people should not be tolerated.