Tour operators said in January that the North would reopen Rason, a city on the border with China, to foreign tourists, five years after Pyongyang sealed its frontiers in response to Covid-19.
Koryo Tours said the February tour in Rason would be “the first trip back to North Korea since the borders closed in January 2020”.
The birthdays of members of the ruling Kim dynasty are typically feted in the North with large scale public celebrations.
Itineraries on offer also included visiting North Korean factories, schools and a bank at which tourists can open their very own North Korean bank account.
The tours were slated to start in China, with guests to be driven to the border with the nuclear-armed North.
Rason became North Korea’s first special economic zone in 1991 and has been a testing ground for new economic policies.
Tourism to the North was limited before the pandemic, with tour companies saying around 5,000 Western tourists visited each year. Americans were banned from travelling to the North after the imprisonment and subsequent death of student Otto Warmbier in 2017.
North Korea shut its borders in early 2020 to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and later bolstered defences along its northern boundary with China to deter its own nationals from re-entering the country illegally.
Chinese tourists -- who made up the bulk of foreign visitors to North Korea before the pandemic -- have not returned to the country, with experts speculating that it may be linked to Beijing’s growing displeasure over Pyongyang bolstering ties with Moscow.
Pyongyang’s actions are “destabilising not only the Northeast Asian region but also Europe,“ Asan Institute for Policy Studies research fellow Lee Dong-gyu told AFP.
On the surface, China is maintaining the appearance of friendly ties with long-time ally North Korea, and has not publicly criticised Pyongyang’s moves to boost ties with Russia.
“However, through measures like restricting tourism or imposing economic pressure, China appears to be signalling its dissatisfaction,“ Lee added.
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