Washington is scrutinizing travel agencies’ marketing and eyeing a travel ban.
For $1,052, the travel agency promises a summer adventure through the hot spas and water parks of North Korea. For $2,060, offers “the ultimate experience” of touring Pyongyang during Victory Day, the festival where North Koreans commemorate the end of the Korean War. And for $869, presents tourists with a glimpse into New Year’s celebrations behind “the world’s last remaining ‘iron curtain.’ ” Now the brutal death of a young American student is sparking a new push in the US to prevent any Americans from joining these tours. Otto Warmbier, just days after returning to the US in a coma after 17 months in captivity in North Korea. The 22-year-old had been sentenced to 15 years of labor for allegedly trying to steal a propaganda poster in a staff-only section of a hotel in Pyongyang while on a trip organized by Young Pioneer Tours. Warmbier’s father, Fred Warmbier, said his son had been duped into thinking that his trip to North Korea would be a safe one. “The North Koreans lure Americans to travel to North Korea via tour groups, run out of China, who advertise slick ads on the internet proclaiming, ‘No American ever gets detained on our tours,’ and, ‘This is a safe place to go,’ ” he said at a. To be clear, travel agencies like the one Warmbier used to go to North Korea are not typically owned or operated by the country. But it does seem this organization and at least one other have downplayed if not entirely concealed the possibility of risk for travelers on this trip on their websites, and instead presented the country as a hazard-free exotic destination. Until the day Warmbier died, Young Pioneer Tours’ online FAQs described North Korea as “Extremely safe!” and assured potential travelers, “Despite what you may hear, North Korea is probably one of the safest places on Earth to visit.” Only after Warmbier died did the company amend its FAQs to include a note on the harsh consequences tourists might face for disobeying North Korean laws. It also that it would no longer take Americans to North Korea because the “risk for Americans visiting North Korea has become too high.” There has been no indication that Young Pioneer Tours will be canceling any of its upcoming tours, though — one tour, to the North Korean borderlands, is scheduled to depart on June 21. Lupine Travel, which has also depicted North Korea as exceptionally safe in the past, is still considering whether or not to take further bookings from Americans, while two other agencies — Uri Tours and Koryo Group — have told they’ re also reviewing whether to accept Americans on trips to North Korea. At the same time, Washington is considering measures that might foreclose the possibility entirely. In released shortly after Warmbier’s death was announced, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ed Royce said, “Otto’s father is right: travel propaganda lures far too many people to North Korea. … The United States should ban tourist travel to North Korea.” Such a ban could come either through legislation or by an executive order from the White House. In May, Reps. Adam B. Schiff (D-CA) and Joe Wilson (R-SC) the North Korea Travel Control Act in the House of Representatives, which would block all US tourist travel to North Korea. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also told a House committee last week that the White House is contemplating initiating its own ban. “We have been evaluating whether we should put some type of travel visa restriction to North Korea, ” Tillerson a House committee last week. “We haven’ t come to a final conclusion, but we are considering it.” A ban might be a way to prevent another tragedy like Warmbier’s case, which could be repeated as other travelers enter the country through tour agencies that don’ t provide them with enough context on the harshness of the regime and the risks of their journey there. But it also would further isolate the most hermetic regime in the world — and help compound swiftly rising tensions between North Korea and the US. Guided tours are the only way most travelers will ever get to see North Korea, and these tours are tightly controlled by the North Korean government. A few dozen international companies obtain licenses from the North Korean government to operate there and work in conjunction with state guides who take visitors around — and supervise them — once they arrive. With the exception of Chinese citizens who have been into the North Korean town of Luo since 2011, foreign visitors are not allowed to travel around the country without a state-approved North Korean guide. These international tour agencies tend to market trips to North Korea as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit a country shrouded in mystery. They describe the country in exotic, almost mythological terms and provide little context on its political situation. Lupine Tours, for example, introduces the country as “The Secret State. The Hermit Kingdom. The Democratic People’s Republic Of Korea, ” but doesn’ t provide any other information on the nature of the North Korean government or its geopolitical relationships with other countries. Young Pioneer Tours also doesn’ t offer much background into security risks in North Korea. Instead, the agency pitches itself to thrill-seeking travelers, branding its trips as “budget travel to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from.” (And if North Korea isn’ t quite exciting enough, Young Pioneer Tours also offers trips to Afghanistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Cuba, and Antarctica.) As recently as June 19, Young Pioneer Tours on its website that traveling to North Korea is “Extremely safe!” “Tourism is very welcomed in North Korea, thus tourists are cherished and well taken care of, ” the site said. This description has now been to include a disclaimer that there may be severe consequences for tourists if they violate North Korea’s strict “lèse-majesté laws, ” which are laws against offending the dignity of a sovereign or a state. The page now also states that all tourists need to sign a pre-tour travel arrangement and attend pre-tour briefings on their visit — both of which were not mentioned in an earlier version of the site. In recent days, Young Pioneer Tours and similar agencies have received serious criticism for how they market their tours and seemingly obscure the risks of traveling to North Korea. The difficult, underlying question behind these discussions is whether Young Pioneer Tours holds any kind of responsibility for Warmbier’s death. Lupine appears to have changed its pitch to travelers in the past year — although it’s unclear exactly when. As recently as October 2016, Lupine Travel that “North Korea is considered one of the safest tourist destinations in the world, ” but warned that “constant disrespect and criticism is likely to lead to deportation or in extreme circumstances, jail.” This disclaimer has since changed: It’s dropped the language on being one of the “safest” spots in the world to visit and Americans to “exercise additional caution while in the country.” It also notifies customers that they will attend “a mandatory safety briefing prior to the tour that will discuss the ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ ts’ of North Korea.” Founder and director of Lupine Travel Dylan Harris said in an emailed statement to Vox that the company has always had these briefings but plans to expand them in light of what happened to Warmbier.
