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Hyundai Asan is in shock after North Korea announced it is stopping package tours to the city of Kaesong from Dec. 1. That means all tourism to North Korea stops for the first time in 10 years. The fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist in July already forced the company to halt tours to Mt. Kumgang.
Hyundai Asan will cancel all reservations for December but will run the tourist business as usual until the end of November. The tours to Kaesong, which began in December 2007, had already attracted a total of 109,000 tourists as of last Sunday, with 4,200 people booked for next month. Places to Kaesong have been fully booked until the end of November. The price for the Kaesong tour is W188,000 per person, of which North Korea takes US$100 per person. Due to the weak won, Hyundai Asan has sustained substantial losses.
Suspension of the Kaesong tours, however, could cost Hyundai Asan up to W2 billion per month in addition to the W80 billion lost from the Mt. Kumgang tours.
North Korea has demanded withdrawal of personnel and cars from Kaesong, and Hyundai Asan plans to pull out 91 employees by Dec. 1. But the North did not say what is to happen to Hyundai Asan staff in Mt. Kumgang, and the company hopes there will be no problem regarding its 25 employees there.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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