North Korean “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong Un officially inaugurated the Wonsan‑Kalma coastal resort on June 24 — a lavish project covering over 2.5 miles of beach, outfitted with hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, and a water park.
Framed by state media as the “first step” toward a domestic tourism boom, the facility is set to open its doors to North Koreans on July 1, with purported capacity for up to 20,000 visitors per year.
With foreign tourists still largely banned—only select Russian visitors are tentatively scheduled starting July 7, according to AP.
The Wonsan-Kalma resort, originally unveiled in 2014, suffered multiple delays. In 2019, Kim Jong Un postponed the project, asserting he would not compromise on quality. Behind the scenes, analysts attributed this delay to sanctions-related import restrictions, according to Business Insiders.
The news outlet added:
That beach is in Wonsan, on the Kalma peninsula — a stretch of North Korea’s eastern coast now home to dozens of hotels and apartments — and is the latest puzzling artifact of Kim Jong Un’s grandiose ambitions.
Reports of the exact scale vary from about 7,000 to 20,000 rooms, which could make the resort — called Wonsan Kalma —one of the largest single-entity-owned beach resorts on the planet.
“This is by far larger than anything else Kim has done” in tourism, Bruce W. Bennett, an expert in North Korean affairs at RAND, told Business Insider.
The dream for Kim: a world-class megatourism project displaying his totalitarian power to the world and at home, and a way to make money.
The question is who, exactly, will flock there.
WATCH:
NEW: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to open a beach resort this summer to boost tourism.
The resort is along a 2.5 mile stretch of beach and can host 20,000 visitors. It was completed six years after the target date.
The resort is on the east coast of North Korea and… pic.twitter.com/5B3iELyCQU
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 26, 2025
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