Tourists queue up before Chinese border control at Dandong Railway Station before embarking on a trip to North Korea. (Photo: GT/Chu Daye)
Frequent bullet trains, DPRK tours draw in tourists: experts
Despite UN sanction against North Korea and recent nuclear tests conducted by the country, tourism in Dandong, a Northeast Chinese border city that sits across the river from North Korea, seem to remain unaffected, in part due to China's opening of high-speed railways that connect the area with other major cities in Northeast China.
On Wednesday, streams of tourists from across China strolled around and took photos at the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, which spans about 950 meters across the Yalu River, the boundary river between China and North Korea.
On September 1, 2015, China opened a 208-kilometer-long high-speed railway link between Dandong, in Northeast China's Liaoning Province, and the province's capital Shenyang. The high-speed train cut the then three-and-a-half-hour trip down to one hour and 11 minutes.
The new railway transported about 6.5 million passengers in its first year of service, according to some media reports.
"Passenger trains from Shenyang arrive in our city at intervals of half an hour, while those from Dalian [another major city in Liaoning] come at a rate of one train per hour. These trains bring large flows of tourists," Ma Yanjun, deputy general manager at Dandong Fengguang International Travel Service Co, told the Global Times Tuesday.
The railway provides tourists with a convenient transportation alternative, even as many middle-class families choose to travel in their own cars, Ma said.
During this year's three-day-long May Day holiday, the number of tourists visiting Dandong exceeded 1.91 million, up 14.8 percent year-on-year, according to local news portal ddnews.com.cn. About 25,000 passengers arrived in the city via high-speed bullet trains each day.
DPRK draw
Inside the Dandong Railway Station, crowds of tourists were waiting at the border inspection point to have their passports examined before embarking on a four-day tour to North Korea which includes a visit to the capital Pyongyang. Such trips require a pre-booking of several days.
The availability of half-day tours to North Korea, which began in July, and which has minimal requirements for document preparation, has also increased the city's attractiveness to tourists, Ma said.
North Korea is a mysterious place for most Chinese, prompting many to embark on a trip to see the country for themselves, insiders said.
Some tourists have little expectation of what awaits them in North Korea.
"How can I tell you what I expect to see when I haven't embarked on the train yet," a tourist told the Global Times Wednesday.
Yet their excitement is evident as they take photos and selfies beside the DPRK national emblem - featuring a red star and a hydroelectric power station - embossed on train carriages.
The train appears fully packed, with possibly as many as 400 tourists crowded into a four-carriage-soft-berth train that left before noon on Wednesday.
"There is no notable change in the number of tourists visiting North Korea via our firm, given the [current] situation," a tour guide, who declined to be named, told the Global Times at the Dandong Railway Station on Wednesday.
The guide said each day around 30 tourists take the four-day tour via their agency. Last year their number of tour bookings to the country was around 6,000.
"One relaxing feature of the DPRK tour is that there is not much shopping, a predominant feature of many domestic tour packages in which tourists' time is wasted in shops," the guide said, noting that might be the reason why many senior citizens are in the tour groups.
Two Australian backpackers spotted among the crowd told the Global Times on the condition of anonymity that the procedure for applying for visas via a travel agent was standard and quite smooth.
Dandong attractions
As detours to North Korea requires time and cannot be done on the spur of the moment, many impulsive tourists have to give up their impromptu desire to see the country, Ma said.
"Many tourists have come to us and said they want to go to North Korea the next day, and that they are prepared to pay extra money, but that's not how things work out here," Ma said.
Many then turn to Dandong's own attractions such as the cross-border bridges, hot springs, river cruises and mountain tours, and the famous Dandong barbeque, which claims to be the second most famous barbeque in China.
"The city's appearance is improving constantly and becoming more tourist friendly," Ma said. "As tour operators, we hope more people come to see our city."
