Five new hotels were opened in Samjiyon, near the Chinese border, with Kim Jong Un praising the “rising status” of North Korea’s people.

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un and his daughter Ju Ae have opened what state media calls an “attractive mountainous tourist resort and leisure ground for the people.”

According to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), five luxury hotels have opened their doors in Samjiyon, a remote northern city near China.

Pyongyang promoted its latest luxury hotels, featuring amenities such as barbecue restaurants, hot tubs and leisure spaces, despite widespread economic hardship across the country.

Kim toured bedrooms and other facilities at new hotels

Kim, who attended the ceremonies on Saturday, declared the resort “clear proof of the rising status of our people,” despite the hardships most North Koreans endure.

He personally inspected the facilities, even testing the firmness of the beds for good measure, according to KCNA. His daughter, believed by many analysts to be the heir apparent, was by his side for the grand tour.

State media insisted the hotels were proof citizens have “nothing to envy in the world.”

The opening comes as Kim seeks to highlight the ⁠country’s ‍economic progress ahead of a party congress next year, when a new development plan ‌is expected ‌to be unveiled.

According to KCNA he said the new resort was “clear proof of the ever-growing ideal of our people and our state’s potential for development.”

Foreign tourists likely the target market

Tourism to North Korea remains a tightly choreographed affair mostly limited to government-approved tours that offer only controlled glimpses of life in the hermit kingdom.

But Kim is on a drive to boost tourism, and the opening of the new hotels at Samjiyon follows North Korea’s launch of the Wonsan Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone earlier this year.

He declared Samjiyon to be an “innovative and highly civilized city representing the tourism culture of the country.”

“The main target demographic is foreigners,” Peter Ward, a research fellow at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, told AFP. But, he added, visits to Samjiyon could also serve as rewards for “productive units” of workers.

Lim Eul-Chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, said “large-scale group tourism could soon be accommodated via border regions with China.”

Edited by: Richard Connor, Darko Janjevic

DW News