Overland Mt. Geumgang Tours to Resume
ROK Ministry of Unification
2003-09-01
Overland tours to North Korea's Mt. Geumgang on the east coast will resume Monday (Sept. 1), the Yonhap News Agency reported quoting tour operator Hyundai Asan said.
The firm said overland tours will be offered every other day and will last two nights and three days.
A total of 328 South Korean tourists will leave for the scenic mountain area via the reopened route on Monday, while 106 are to depart by a cruise ship, the company said.
"If the overland tours become popular, the Mt. Geumgang tourism program will be in the black from 2005," a Hyundai Asan official said.
The overland route to the scenic mountain resort opened in February before being suspended by the North. It was agreed upon last month that South Korean tourists would again be able to use the route, but its future was thrown into doubt by the suicide of Hyundai Asan chairman Chung Mong-hun on Aug. 4.
Hyundai's cruise trip service to Mt. Geumgang began in 1998 during a wave of inter-Korean reconciliation and exchanges, but a lack of tourists plunged the firm into financial trouble. Also, Hyundai Group became embroiled in a controversy over its huge remittance to North Korea in 2000, allegedly in exchange for Pyongyang's consent to the historic inter-Korean summit that year.
As of June, Hyundai Asan had lost 800 billion won ($678.9 million) from the tourism project.
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