Kim wants Med-style resort
James Badcock
The North Korean Government of Kim Jong Un is planning a Mediterranean “costa”-style beach resort, taking inspiration from emblematic tourism hot spots in Spain, such as Benidorm.
A delegation of 20 officials from the secretive state has enjoyed a fact-finding road trip from the French border to Barcelona, Valencia and Alicante, seeking inspiration as North Korea plans its own large beach resort in Wonsan, a port city on the country’s eastern coast.
According to a spokesman for the North Korean Embassy in Madrid, the delegation was “amazed by the dimensions” of Benidorm’s towers and holiday parks. He added that the Marina d’Or enclosed tourism complex in Oropesa del Mar was the closest match to their plans in Wonsan, “aimed at the domestic and international markets”.
The spokesman said: “We wanted to focus on the beaches because that is what we are interested in”. The group were, however, captivated by Benidorm’s history-based theme park Terra Mitica, suggesting that Wonsan may one day boast an amusement park showing how North Korea evolved to perfection on the shoulders of its Asian forerunners.
As well as visiting Benidorm’s towering hotels, the visitors went to a campsite.
But North Korea’s plans to increase numbers of foreign visitors from just over 100,000 to an annual one million were jolted by the recent death of Otto Warmbier, a US visitor jailed after admitting stealing a propaganda poster and then slipping into a coma after his trial last year in Pyongyang.