North’s Kalma resort likely for domestic tourists, expert says

North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun reported on Aug. 3 that “people’s laughter resounded in every cultural recreation site″ at the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist area. [NEWS1]

 
North Korea’s newly opened beach resort is likely intended for domestic travelers rather than foreign tourists, a prominent scholar said, in a shift that underscores the regime’s evolving economic and social priorities tailored to an emerging middle class and increasingly detached from Western engagement.
 
The Wonsan-Kalma coastal resort in Kangwon Province, described by Pyongyang as a “world-class cultural resort” with a capacity of some 20,000 visitors, opened its doors on June 24. It saw its first batch of foreign tourists on July 7.
 
It had been widely assumed by analysts that the project, led by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was designed to attract international tourism to generate much-needed cash for North Korea, in addition to being Kim’s pet project meant to portray the state as modern and affluent.
 
But the resort, unlike Pyongyang’s previous tourism projects, is “in all likelihood, primarily intended for domestic travelers,” Ruediger Frank, a professor of East Asian economy and society at the University of Vienna, wrote in his analysis published on 38 North on Friday.
 

Visitors at North Korea’s Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist area drink beer in this picture published by the Rodong Sinmun on July 24. [NEWS1]

 
The shift toward domestic tourism appears to be driven by two main factors, according to Frank. The project echoes leisure policies seen in other authoritarian and state-socialist countries, such as in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, where the state promoted internal travel as part of broader social management.
 
It also reflects the rise of a consumer class with disposable income in the North, suggesting a growing middle class and a broader push to center the economy on domestic spending.
 
This implies that North Korea’s economic policy, which had “prioritized basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter […] marks a shift in focus toward consumption-led development,” Frank said.
 

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his daughter, Ju-ae, visit the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist area for its opening ceremony on June 24, as reported by the Rodong Sinmun on June 26. [NEWS1]

 
The resort also mirrors the regime’s change in foreign policy, according to the professor. Pyongyang’s stronger ties with Beijing and Moscow as well as its policies for domestic consumers signal the leadership’s singular focus on economic development without Western economic cooperation and increased separation from its Southern neighbor, he argued.
 
“The North Korean state seems to be confident to be able to afford even stronger self-isolation from the West in general, and from South Korea in particular,” Frank wrote. “Such shifts should inform future international engagement with North Korea.”
 
Frank is an economist and expert on East Asia who has researched North Korea since 1991. Raised in East Germany, he spent one semester as a language student at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang in 1991 to 1992 during the regime of Kim Il Sung, the founder and first leader of North Korea.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]