In latest days, information that worldwide passenger prepare companies between China and North Korea are resuming has been spreading quickly throughout the journey business.
The set off was an announcement from the official WeChat account of China Railway stating that, beginning March 12, 2026, worldwide passenger trains will function in each instructions between Beijing and Dandong in China, and Pyongyang in North Korea.
Xiangyu, a tour information at a journey company in Dandong, mentioned that a lot of the web pleasure could also be untimely.
“Proper now the entire web is spreading the information concerning the March 12 prepare reopening to North Korea,” he mentioned. “However the service is especially for enterprise vacationers and particular personnel. In different phrases, solely enterprise visas are at present accessible — vacationer visas for bizarre vacationers haven’t been reopened in any respect.”
He added that many tour operators are already selling “first departure” tour packages.
“I’ve been working alongside the border for greater than a yr and have been watching the state of affairs intently. There was no official discover about reopening tourism to North Korea. Businesses asking folks to pay now to ‘lock in a spot’ or promoting so-called inaugural tour teams are principally charging folks an ‘intelligence tax’ —playing with vacationers’ cash on a risk.”
Actually, rumors concerning the reopening of North Korean tourism usually are not new. In August 2024, international media additionally reported that North Korea may resume tourism. On the time, the Chinese language journey business was making ready eagerly, however Pyongyang by no means confirmed the stories and the dialogue steadily pale away.
Based on official North Korean statistics, greater than 200,000 international vacationers visited the nation in 2018, a file excessive, with about 90% from China.
Now that the China–North Korea worldwide prepare service has resumed, journey information platform VariFlight exhibits that on March 11, flight searches to Dandong elevated by about 50% in contrast with the day prior to this, whereas prepare ticket searches to the town rose roughly 20%.
This means that even after six years of suspended worldwide tourism following the border closure, Chinese language vacationers’ curiosity in North Korea has not pale.
