“Our company was founded in 1993 and since then has been the universally recognised expert in travel to the DPRK” - Interview with Simon (General Manager of Koryo Tours)

Klaus-Martin Meyer: Simon, you are the (CEO, CFO ..????) of Koryo Tours. Would you please introduce yourself and your company as well to our readers?

Simon: We don’t really have job titles, I would perhaps best be described as the General Manager, something like that. Our company was founded in 1993 and since then has been the universally recognised expert in travel to the DPRK, we take around 50% of all western tourists and have also produced 3 award winning films in North Korea. We are a British run company based in Beijing and we personally visit DPRK almost every month so are the only company in literal day to day contact with our Korean partners as well as very frequent visitors to the country itself

Klaus-Martin Meyer: Can you tell us a little bit about the different tours you offer to your customers?

Simon: We have standard tours; seeing the highlights of Pyongyang, Kaesong, Mount Myohyang, Wonsan, etc as well as offering Independent tours so people can travel in their own groups if they prefer, also on dates that they specify, we have tours for US citizens at the times they are allowed in (when the Mass Games is running) we also run specialized tours such as football tournaments, golf competitions, and even a cricket tournament involving North Koreans, we have an ice-hockey tour coming up too!

Klaus-Martin Meyer: Whould you give us please some informations about the avarage traveller on your tours?

Simon: There isn’t really an average type to be honest, we tend to get younger groups than other tour companies (because we are based in Beijing I think) so most of our tourists are aged between 20 – 50, about two thirds men to one third women. A wide range of nationalities, the average tour will have Brits, Australians, Canadians, French, German, Dutch, and some others too. We have taken people from over 40 different countries to North Korea

Klaus-Martin Meyer: How much is the corporate travel to the DPRK affected by the development of the new industrial site in Kaesong?

Simon: Not in any way; Kaesong Industrial Park is made up mainly of South Korean owned factories, it is geographically part of the DPRK but is accessible generally from South Korea only, there are exceptions but this is really nothing to do with tourism

Klaus-Martin Meyer: What are your plans for the companys future? How do you see Koryo Tours in five years time?

Simon: Hard to say to be honest, we have expanded a lot in the past 5 years and there is room for more and more people to go, however most important to us is doing the best job possible, it is unusual for a boutique travel company of specialists to be also the largest company in the market so we are in a privileged position at the moment, we plan to keep pushing for new parts of the country to open up, running new and innovative tours and giving people the trip of their lives!

Stichworte: Koryo Tours