North Korea is under heavy sanctions, but that hasn’t stopped travelers from visiting the country.
According to Dylan Harris, the owner of British agency Lupine Travel, reservations to North Korea booked through his company are up 20 percent in the last three months, Voice of America reported Wednesday.
The United Nations Security Council adopted a new sanctions resolution last November that targets North Korea’s nuclear weapons program by tightening restrictions on coal exports.
Pyongyang has also been condemned for various human rights abuses, according to a U. N. Commission of Inquiry that has been tasked to investigate cases of violations that include torture, execution, arbitrary incarceration, deliberate starvation and enslavement.
None of those findings, however, may be stopping the most curious global traveler.
According to Harris, the latest sanctions are having no impact on tourism, and tensions on the Korean peninsula have not resulted in mass cancellations.
Harris said the one reservation travelers have is the risk of being arrested in North Korea.
Foreign visitors to the relatively isolated country have previously been detained for violating strict rules, including U. S. student Otto Warmbier, who was charged with taking down a political slogan from a hotel in Pyongyang.
Warmbier is currently in North Korea detention.
To meet the rising demand for North Korea travel, Harris said Lupine Travel plans to conduct a group tour to North Korea on a monthly basis in 2017.
Korea Konsult, a Swedish travel agency specializing in North Korea tours, is also planning to expand its North Korea business, according to VOA.
On its website, Korea Konsult states the company runs 40 group tours annually.
A spokesman for the agency said events like nuclear and missile tests have a temporary negative effect on tourism, but its impact lasts at most two weeks.
