During the last ten years Simon Cockerell has journeyed to North Korea more than a hundred times, taking tourists into and out of the world’s most enigmatic and fascinating county.
The market for western tourism has risen from a few dozen people annually to around 3000 non-Chinese tourists per year and Simon has, first hand experienced, this phenomena, both personally and professional.
In this presentation, he will explain how the system of tourism works in this very different country, share some stories from the times he has been there and the experiences and dealings he has had with the North Koreans.
He hopes to demystify some of the more confusing elements of their society and in general present more information about a place that is too-often a knowledge black hole.
Simon Cockerell is the General Manager of Koryo Tours Ltd, the Beijing-based British-run tour company that specializes in leading tours to North Korea. In addition to running tours for both groups and individuals during this time Simon has broken new ground by introducing such concepts to the North Koreans as school trips (several international schools now send groups there to mix with their North Korean contemporaries), sports events with foreign teams (the first amateur football, ice hockey, ultimate Frisbee, mountain biking, volleyball, and even cricket matches), and documentary filmmaking – Koryo Tours has co-produced three award winning films about the country including A State of Mind which had the first glimpse of real life of Pyongyang dwellers, and Crossing the Line, the amazing story of an American soldier who defected to North Korea in 1961 and remains there to this day.