HONG KONG — North Korea has once again closed its borders, suspending foreign tourism just weeks after the secretive state welcomed its first Western visitors in five years.
North Korea sealed its borders in early 2020 at the start of the Covid pandemic, gradually lifting restrictions starting in mid-2023.
The first tourists, a group from Russia, were allowed into the country in February 2024, but the first international visitors from other countries including Britain, Canada, France and Germany only arrived in North Korea for the first time last month.
The visit by the Western group was limited to the remote northeastern city of Rason, which the North Korean government has designated a special economic zone. During the trip, they visited factories, shops and statues of late North Korean leaders.
Unlike the Russians, they were not allowed to visit Pyongyang, the capital.
Tour operators said Wednesday that travel to North Korea was no longer possible until further notice. It was unclear why North Korea had closed again to foreign visitors and how long the suspension would last.
“We have been informed that Rason is temporarily CLOSED,” Koryo Tours, a tour operator based in Beijing, said in a statement Wednesday. “It’s an unprecedented situation.”
Other travel agencies that organize North Korea trips made similar announcements.
“We recommend that those planning tours in April and May refrain from booking flights until we have more information,” China-based Young Pioneer Tours said in a Facebook post, adding that refunds are available for tours that are canceled due to the abrupt change.
Rason has operated differently from the rest of North Korea since it was declared a special economic zone in 1991. It has been used as a testing ground for new economic policies, the country’s first mobile phone network and the first card payment system.
Before the pandemic, North Korea had hosted hundreds of thousands of Chinese tourists who provided up to $175 million in extra revenue in 2019, according to the South Korea-based news outlet NK News.
More recently, North Korea has been deepening ties with Russia, signing a mutual defense pact last year and sending weapons and troops to support President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine. In 2024, almost 900 Russian tourists visited North Korea, the South Korean Unification Ministry said, citing official Russian data.
The United States banned its citizens from traveling to the country in 2017 after the death of American student Otto Warmbier.
Warmbier, 22, a University of Virginia student, stole a propaganda banner from a hotel during a visit to Pyongyang in January 2016 and was later sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for committing a hostile act against the government. He was returned to the United States in a coma the following year and died shortly afterward.
