For tour agencies, the JSA tour is one of the packages that sell with the highest margin in South Korea with “absolutely no cost involved to the tour companies, except for the bus and the driver”, said Jacco Zwetsloot, a former JSA tour guide and now host of the NK News Podcast about North Korea.
Visiting JSA is free of charge for South Korean nationals, but the tour King was on started at US$180, according to a Tripadvisor listing.
For the UNC, the tours are about educating people and raising awareness of the “frozen conflict” after the Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, Zwetsloot said.
Zwetsloot predicted changes could include making the tours even smaller, to as few as 10 people per group, or keeping groups behind glass or back away from the border where troops from both sides stand almost face to face.
“I expect that within a year, we’ll see a redesigned orientation visit become possible once again, but it probably won’t be as free and easy as they have been for the last 40 or so years,” he said, noting that security should be the main consideration.
Lim Eul-chul, a professor of North Korean studies at Kyungnam University, said authorities should focus on how to better control tour groups while keeping the area open to the public.
“Banning access would only result in people losing sight of this grave reality that the Korean peninsula is facing,” Lim said.
Source: CNA
